Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

UTTOXETER URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (LYMINGTON) BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Gypsies (Ration Books)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that many gypsies are without ration books; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy this in the near future.

The Minister of Food (Mr. Maurice Webb): I do not think that any special measures are either called for or are practicable. There are already arrangements to enable any person living in this country to get a ration book on application. If these people are without ration books it is their own fault, and they must take steps to get them. I know of no way in which I can take responsibility for exercising the personal rights of any free citizen in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Dodds: Is not this another example of how little is known of the gypsy population of this country? Is my right hon. Friend aware of the campaign which is now hounding gypsies from one place to another? Is he further aware that the fact that very few of them can either read or write makes it necessary for the Government to recognise that the gypsies are a minority problem and should be given the same facilities as are afforded to other people?

Mr. Webb: All the facilities are there. It is open to any gypsy, or any other person who has citizen rights in this country, to exercise them. Merely by going into any local food office they can exercise their rights in this matter. Beyond that I do not see what I can do.

Chemicals

Dr. Barnett Stross: asked the Minister of Food what control there is over the addition to foodstuffs which are processed or manufactured, of chemicals or substances which may ultimately prove to be poisonous, although no evidence is yet available of their toxic nature; and whether he will consider banning their use unless there is ample evidence that they are not harmful.

Mr. Webb: The Food and Drugs Act, 1938, puts a direct responsibility on manufacturers and distributors to supply safe food and they frequently seek, and adopt, our advice about the wisdom of using particular chemicals or substances. There is at present no more direct control over the use of substances which are not known to be harmful, and which arc not open to reasonable grounds of suspicion; and I do not not think that I should be justified in seeking to employ the powers granted by Section 8 of the Act to make a general prohibition of the kind proposed, even if it could be drafted, which seems doubtful.

Dr. Stross: Is my right hon. Friend aware, however, that he used the word "frequently" and that he did not say "always"? Is he aware of the innumerable new substances turned out by the chemical industry and that none of us know at first whether they are toxic or non-toxic? Will he look again at the 1938 Act and strengthen it to protect the public?

Mr. Webb: The simple point between us is that at the moment I am quite content to rest on administrative action, with the advice that I am given. I do not think that any change in the law is required, but if, in the light of experience. such change is required, we will look at it.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Food whether he will give a list of the chemical substances which are used to refine, improve, preserve or adulterate foodstuffs.

Mr. Webb: It is an offence under the Food and Drugs Act to adulterate food; and the use of preservatives in food is prohibited, with a few exceptions, by the Preservatives in Food Regulations. Chemicals have, of course, been used in the preparation of food for very many years, and as the list is a very long one, and constantly being added to, it would, I am afraid, be impracticable to provide the information asked for by my hon. Friend.

Dr. Stross: While we all recognise that about 700 additives are in use in connection with foodstuffs of all kinds, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that, from time to time, we find that some which we accept as being harmless prove to be dangerous and toxic? Will he not please look at Section 8 of the Act of 1938, and give himself more power to protect the public?

Mr. Webb: I should be very glad to look at that Section if my hon. Friend would explain to me the meaning of the word "additives." I do not know what it means.

Dr. Stross: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment tonight.

Flour (Improvers)

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Food to what extent flour is still treated with agene; and when he estimates this type of flour treatment will have entirely ceased.

Mr. Webb: The proportion of flour used for human consumption at present treated with agene is estimated at about 90 per cent. As has already been announced, agreement has been reached with the milling industry to stop the use of agene and consideration is now being given to the choice of an alternative improver; but I cannot yet say when the treatment of flour with agene will cease.

Dr. Stross: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that his answer cannot be satisfactory to those of us who are interested in this subject and who suspect that agene is a toxic agent? Is he aware further that such an authority as Lord Mellanby recently stated that in his view it might be that peptic ulceration and acute appendicitis result from the use of

agene'? Cannot my right hon. Friend hurry up the process?

Mr. Webb: We are trying to hurry it up, but there is a conflict of evidence about it. There is no real evidence to support the rather alarming suggestions made by my hon. Friend. We have agreed to make certain changes in the production of flour and in the end to eliminate the use of agene. I hope that my hon. Friend will exercise some patience in allowing us adequate time in order to get this matter through the industrial machine.

Mr. Douglas Marshall: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the first answer he gave was exactly the same as the answer he gave to me in April, 1950, with the exception that he then said "in the immediate future." More than a year has elapsed and he has taken no action.

Mr. Webb: It is not surprising that my answer is not dissimilar from the one I gave in April, 1950. I said then that it was a long process. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] For all sorts of reasons into which I cannot go now. We are committed to the change, but the task of effecting it is complicated and takes a long time; but we are proceeding with all due speed.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is it not a fact that the millers would not have put this substance into the flour unless the right hon. Gentleman's Department had forced them to do so?

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Does not the fact that the Minister has now decided to terminate the use of agene as a chemical ingredient, in spite of the conflict of evidence, indicate that he has come to the conclusion that there is something radically wrong with its use? In view of that, ought he not to speed up the process?

Mr. Webb: I am doing all I can to speed up the process. It is not as easy as it looked when I started and entered into commitments about it. There are really serious difficulties for the people who are engaged in the milling of flour, all of which I have to take into account. They themselves agreed to this new arrangement, and they will, I am convinced, make the necessary change at the earliest practicable moment.

Mr. Somerville Hastings: Is any direct research carried out in my right hon. Friend's Department into the toxicity or otherwise of such substances as agene?

Mr. Webb: I should like notice of that question.

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of Food if he will give the analysis of flour for bread used today, showing, in particular, how much potato flour is included.

Mr. Webb: The flour supplied by millers for bread-making is composed of home-milled wheaten flour with an 81 per cent. extraction rate and imported wheaten flour with a 72 per cent. extraction rate. Calcium carbonate, at the rate of 14 oz. per 280 lb. of flour, is also added. Bakers may add potato flour in baking bread, but because of its relatively high price hardly any is being used at present.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that deterioration in the quality of our bread is entirely due to bulk purchase and State monopoly? Is he also aware that shortages are produced by restricting consumption, and that there are no real shortages in the world today?

Mr. Webb: I cannot accept that supposition, because long before the State bulk-purchased wheat, private enterprise bulk-purchased wheat and flour.

Meal Prices (Display)

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: asked the Minister of Food what information he has as to whether, in accordance with the recommendation of the associations in the hotel and catering trades to their members, which he approved last December, meal prices are now generally displayed outside hotels and restaurants.

Mr. Webb: My information is that there has been a good response to this recommendation, and that many more restaurants and hotels are now displaying meal prices.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the repeated request of the Catering Wages Commission for the public display of priced menus incates that many restaurants are continuing to exploit the public by not showing their prices outside their premises?

Mr. Webb: This is really a matter for voluntary choice. If the customer does not wish to go into a restaurant because the price list is not displayed there is no compulsion on him to go inside.

Sir H. Williams: What about British Railways?

Fat Stock, Norfolk (Slaughtering)

Mr. Dye: asked the Minister of Food what action he proposes to take to improve the facilities for slaughtering fat stock in Norfolk when large quantities are forthcoming during the autumn months.

Mr. Webb: I do not think that this will be a very difficult problem. Fat cattle marketings in Norfolk are greatest in the spring, not in the autumn. Other parts of the country are then able to help, and in the autumn Norfolk helps them.

Mr. Dye: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the conditions of the slaughterhouses, whether in autumn or spring, are the subject of most adverse criticism by medical officers of health, and does he not agree that it is urgent that something should be done?

Mr. Webb: That is a wider question. I am conscious of the lack of adequate facilities for slaughtering, not only in Norfolk but in other parts of the country.

Mr. Dye: asked the Minister of Food how many fat pigs were accepted at the collecting centres and by the area pig allocation officer in Norfolk during 1950; how many were sent outside the county for slaughter; and what was the shrinkage allowance made in respect of these pigs.

Mr. Webb: One hundred and four thousand, two hundred and sixty pigs were accepted at collecting centres and 47,114 by the Area Pig Allocation Officer. About 146,000 were sent out of Norfolk to bacon factories in Suffolk and the Midlands, which are partly dependent on that county for supplies. About 5,000 pigs were slaughtered in Norfolk for use as fresh pork and for manufacturing purposes. Considerable labour would be needed to work out the shrinkage payments on all these pigs, but I am sending my hon. Friend copies of the scale on which they are calculated.

Mr. Dye: Does not my right hon. Friend appreciate that shrinkage of pigs


in transit, before they get to the slaughterhouses, is a matter of concern to the producer and that it should be to the Ministry, because of the loss of weight? Would it not be better to make some re-arrangement of the slaughtering facilities in the Eastern Counties?

Mr. Webb: I have already explained to my hon. Friend the difficulties in this matter. I cannot add anything to my previous answers.

Commander Maitland: Does not this Question, and the last, indicate the importance of having slaughterhouses at places nearer to where the meat is produced, and also illustrate the general shortage of slaughterhouses in the country?

Mr. Webb: I think that is so.

Eggs

Mr. Eric Fletcher: asked the Minister of Food why some egg retailers in Islington are able to give their registered customers only one egg a week and others six or more each week.

Mr. Webb: I am very surprised to be told that there are retailers in Islington who have been unable recently to let their registered customers have more than one egg a week. If my hon. Friend will let me have the names and addresses of these retailers I will make inquiries.

Mr. Fletcher: May I inform my right hon. Friend that I will certainly let him have the names of the retailers in question, and that I should be most grateful if he would look into the matter?

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Food why he will not allow newly laid eggs to be sold by producers direct to retail shops thus enabling the public to buy home-produced eggs before they are 48 hours old; and the average time taken under present arrangements for eggs to travel from producer to retail shop.

Mr. Webb: This proposal would lead to a very unfair distribution of eggs between the town and the country. Under the present arrangements consumers in the large towns get a fair share of home-produced eggs but if producers were allowed to sell direct to retail shops the towns would get a very poor share, and

I really cannot permit the urban population to be treated so unfairly. An investigation carried out last year showed that a fair average time between collection of eggs from a farm and their receipt at a retailer's shop would be seven to nine days. I have no reason to think that it takes any longer now.

Mr. Nabarro: How can the Minister's reply be valid, when, before eggs were controlled, there were plentiful supplies of newly laid eggs for town and country alike? If the present arrangements involve nine days for distribution, whereas private enterprise could do it in three days, why is the Minister dooming the unfortunate consumer to hoary and antiquated eggs for ever?

Mr. Webb: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken, and is under a complete illusion. This is not a comparison with completely free enterprise in a market unrestricted in any way. Long ago, long before we had our present system of distributing eggs, there were all sorts of controls and arrangements, including guaranteed prices and egg marketing boards, to limit the freedom of the private competitor.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Does not the right hon. Gentleman's answer mean that, to prevent unfairness as between one section of the population and another, it is necessary that everybody should have more or less stale eggs?

Mr. Dye: Is it not a fact that all the eggs that go to collecting centres are now tested and graded before they are distributed, whereas in the old days they had often got spots and other things in them and were sold direct?

Mr. Webb: I can state quite emphatically that the general quality of eggs under our present methods of packing and collecting is immeasurably better than it was years before the war.

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Food the percentage decline in quantum of shell eggs passing through the packing stations in the United Kingdom during May, 1951, compared with May, 1950, and April, 1951, compared with April, 1950; why the quality and freshness of recent supplies has declined; and what steps are in hand to improve the position.

Mr. Webb: The quantities of shell eggs which passed through the packing stations in the United Kingdom in May, 1951, and April, 1951, were 8.8 per cent. and 7.4 per cent. respectively, less than the quantities in the same months of 1950. Neither the quality nor the freshness of eggs has declined, and if the hon. Member has evidence to support his suggestion I shall be glad if he will produce it.

Mr. Nabarro: Is it not a fact that this decline in shell egg production is the direct result of an inadequate price paid to the farmers, coupled with the fact that because of the shortage meat birds which should have been retained for egg production have been slaughtered for the table? Would not this muddle have been avoided if the Minister had left the trade in private hands?

Mr. Webb: I do not agree that those allegations are true; but if they are true, they are a very grave reflection on our farming community.

Mr. Dye: Is it not a fact that there are still more poultry in the country than before this slaughtering; and is it not the intention of my right hon. Friend to have more autumn and winter eggs when they are more needed by our population?

Mr. Webb: What is called by the trade —not by the Ministry—the egg population of this country was, at the end of March, at the highest level in our history.

Mr. Nabarro: If the arrangements the right hon. Gentleman refers to are so admirable, why is it necessary for him to continue rationing eggs this year when at this time last year they were on free, unrationed sale?

Mr. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Food whether the shell eggs delivered to the Borough Stores, High Street, Bewdley, Worcestershire, on 21st May, 1951, were fewer than nine days old.

Mr. Webb: I understand that this retailer had no complaint about the quality of the eggs delivered to him on that day.

Mr. Nabarro: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his inspector called on this retailer and was shown a photograph of the condition of the eggs, which involved a nest of mice being found in one case; and does the Minister believe that

the period of gestation for a mouse is fewer than nine days?

Mr. Webb: I am aware of the photograph. I am also aware that the photograph was arranged with the support and active organisation of the hon. Gentleman. I am also aware that it is just as easy for mice to get into egg boxes as it is for bees to get into bonnets and bats into belfries.

Mr. Paton: Is my right hon. Friend sure that this was a mouse's nest and not a mare's nest?

Mr. Nabarro: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that this photograph was fraudulent, or that the information about the nest of mice is inaccurate; and, if so, would he say so?

Mr. Webb: It was a very good photograph, and I compliment the hon. Gentleman on his organisation.

Powders (Adulteration)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Food to what extent custard powders, ice-cream powders and similar articles contain adulterating material.

Mr. Webb: I have no evidence of the use of adulterating material in any of these products.

Sir W. Smithers: Is it a fact that the by-products of gas works are used in the production of the articles mentioned in this Question?

Mr. Webb: That may well be so, but I have no knowledge of it.

Sir W. Smithers: The right hon. Gentleman ought to know.

Meat

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Food when the price and ration of meat is to be increased; and to what extent.

Mr. Webb: I cannot at present add to my recent statements on this matter.

Emergency Coupons

Major Guy Lloyd: asked the Minister of Food how many forged emergency food coupons have come into the hands of his Department so far this year.

Mr. Webb: About 10,000.

Major Lloyd: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is very considerable public concern over this matter, not only among consumers—the purchasers in the shops—but also among the traders themselves? While I realise that the right hon. Gentleman has given the only official figures available, may I ask him whether he will do his utmost to assure the public that everything is being done to prevent a spread of this trouble?

Mr. Webb: Yes, Sir. This is a serious matter, and it causes concern to the Ministry as well as to the trade. Numbers in recent cases have not been too large, and, though they were serious enough in themselves, they were quickly got in hand: but I can assure the House —and I am sure that the House will expect assurance—that we want to give the utmost attention to putting this matter right.

Major Lloyd: asked the Minister of Food what precautions are taken by his Department to see that unissued emergency food coupons do not get into circulation.

Mr. Webb: I am satisfied that the present precautions taken are effective; but I do not think that it would be in the public interest to disclose the actual arrangements.

Major Lloyd: Bearing that answer in mind, will the right hon. Gentleman also remember the remark of the Lord Chief Justice on this subject at a recent trial when he said, in connection with one incident, "There must be gross corruption somewhere"? Where is the corruption?

Raisins

Mr. W. T. Aitken: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that boxes of sultana raisins imported by his Department from Turkey and sold to bakers and confectioners in Bury St. Edmunds, contained quantities of stones, nails, gramophone needles, string and other extraneous material; and what precautions officials of his Department will take to avoid a repetition of this occurrence.

Mr. Webb: In one of the cases referred to me by the hon. Member the fruit was unfortunately released, despite firm instructions to hold it because it was not fit for distribution. We do our best to minimise mistakes like this, but they are bound to occur from time to time, and

I am sorry about this one. We are still making inquiries into the second case, and I will write to the hon. Member when they are completed. I should add, however, that these are relatively insignificant incidents against the general scale of our trading operations.

Mr. Aitken: Is the Minister aware that in a good many cases confectioners and bakers take the box of dried fruit which is marked "clean" and dump it straight into their mixture, and that but for extra precautions taken by the two firms I have mentioned these extraneous ingredients might well have been lethal to a number of people in Bury St. Edmunds? Is the right hon. Gentleman willing to send a notice to all the people who received these 28 lb. boxes asking them to exercise greater care in mixing them with food supplies?

Mr. Webb: I do not think it is necessary to send a notice to the trade. The trade are very co-operative in this matter, and do help us greatly. Incidents of this sort are very small. I do not want to under-estimate them, but it would be equally unwise to exaggerate them.

Mr. Baldwin: Could the Minister say whether this purchase of sultanas was a private transaction, or whether it was done through the Ministry of Food?

Mr. Webb: Not without notice.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Whether traders are co-operative or not, does the right hon. Gentleman not know precisely to which traders these Turkish goods were sent, and can he not circulate those traders and tell them that in the event of an accident or prosecution he would be able to indemnify them?

Mr. Webb: That is a much wider question. I have already authorised such steps as we now think are necessary to deal with this problem, and if it involves circularisation of that sort I am quite prepared to look at that.

Cream Imports

Wing Commander Bullus: asked the Minister of Food how far he intends to continue to allow the importation of cream after the prohibition of manufacture in this country; and for what length of time.

Mr. Webb: As already announced, no cream will be imported after 30th June.

Wing Commander Bullus: Could the right hon. Gentleman give his reasons for not allowing the importation of cream? Is he not aware that there are some shipping companies who are able to continue the importation of cream for the next five or six months?

Mr. Webb: That is not the only factor that I have to take into account. I have also to take into account the interests of the home industry, and it is generally agreed that this is a proper thing to do at this time.

Pig Offals, Suffolk

Major Wise: asked the Minister of Food what weight of pig offals from the Elmswell and Ipswich bacon factories, or elsewhere, was sent to the butchers in the urban district of Hunstanton and rural district of Docking during the last four weeks.

Mr. Webb: The quantity supplied to butchers in these districts from the Ministry's slaughter-houses during the four weeks ended 16th June was 300 1b. I have no information about quantities supplied by the Elmswell and Ipswich bacon factories, since distribution from these sources is not controlled by my Department.

Tomatoes

Major Wise: asked the Minister of Food how many tons of Dutch tomatoes were imported during the 14 days prior to 16th June; and what percentage of the total importation of tomatoes expected from all countries during 1951 this tonnage represents.

Mr. Webb: According to my Department's information, 2,676 tons of tomatoes were imported from Holland between 3rd June and 15th June. I cannot give the information asked for in the second part of the Question. Tomatoes are imported by the private trade and I cannot, therefore, estimate the total tonnage likely to be imported this year.

Major Wise: asked the Minister of Food the tonnage of home-grown tomatoes placed on the market during the, 14 days prior to 16th June; and if he is satisfied that sufficient home-grown tomatoes are available at the moment to supply all consumer needs.

Mr. Webb: Precise figures are not available but my Department's estimate is that during the first half of June some 10,000 tons were marketed, including supplies received from the Channel Islands. At this time of the year homegrown supplies at reasonable prices are not sufficient to meet the demand and limited imports are, therefore, being allowed from abroad.

Containers (Carriage Rates)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Food if his attention has been called to the high rates at present charged for the carriage of empty food and produce containers; and if he will negotiate with the Road Transport Executive to secure a reduction of these charges.

Mr. Webb: No, Sir. I have received no such complaints. In any event these charges are not my responsibility and are matters for negotiation between the carriers and traders concerned.

Sir W. Smithers: Is not the Minister aware of the old saying, "The servant when he reigneth throws the blame on someone else?" Is not this a typical example of the cumulative effect when two nationalised industries try to compete one against another?

Fish, Birmingham Market

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that, owing to delays in the morning delivery of fish to the Birmingham Market by British Railways, Midland Region, it frequently arrives too late to be sold to the dealers until the following day, by which time, particularly in hot weather, it has in many cases become unfit for sale; and if he will approach the British Railways Executive to expedite this service.

Mr. Webb: My information is that delays have not been frequent but our regional transport officer will be glad to join in any consultations between the traders concerned and the local officials of the Railway Executive, to deal with any particular difficulty.

Mr. Lloyd: If I send the right hon. Gentleman a schedule showing some of the recent late arrivals will he look into the matter? Will he bear in mind that be-fore the war the fish was cleared at the market by 7 a.m. whereas nowadays the


retailers have very often had to leave for their shops before the fish is cleared. so that it remains unsold for a whole day?

Mr. Webb: I am very well aware of recent difficulties and should be glad to look at the schedule.

Milk Marketing Board

Mr. Oakshott: asked the Minister of Food what is the number of the staff of his Department at present located at the headquarters of the Milk Marketing Board, Thames Ditton; what are their functions; and what is the weekly cost in salaries and wages.

Mr. Webb: Sixty members of the staff of my Department work at Thames Ditton. The weekly cost in salaries and wages is £716. These officers are responsible for giving effect to the Government's milk policy in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, including subsidy, improvement of quality, welfare and school milk. They also arrange for the payment of guaranteed prices to producers under the Agriculture Act and determine distributive prices and margins.

Mr. Oakshott: Could not a great deal of the work be done by the existing staff of the Milk Marketing Board without extra cost to the taxpayer? Is it not a waste of money and manpower to have these people carrying out the work there?

Mr. Webb: The work would still require the same number of people. The point is which authority should be responsible for organising the work, and that is a rather wider question.

Mr. Turton: Is not this administrative work actually being carried out by the Milk Marketing Board with officials of the Ministry seeing that the work is properly done?

Mr. Webb: I could not accept that as a fact.

Unborn Calves

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the large number of unborn calves found in the beasts sent for slaughter; and what steps he proposes to take to protect the supply of next winter's potential milk.

Mr. Webb: The hon. Member's assumption is far from being correct. The number of these unborn calves is quite

insignificant and it would certainly have no appreciable effect on milk supplies. There is a standing instruction to livestock grading panels not to accept for grading and purchase any cow which in their opinion is in calf, unless they are satisfied that its condition is such that it should be slaughtered.

Mr. De la Bère: Is the Minister aware that, unhappily, my assumption is not incorrect? Is he not aware of the figures which support this fact? If this unhappy practice is continued, does he not realise that we shall be heading for milk rationing again and that the Government must accept responsibility for this because of the poor prices which they are paying to the milk producers today?

Mr. Webb: We must separate the two things. I do not think that the situation, however serious it was, would have an appreciable effect on the supplies of milk this autumn, but in so far as it is a problem I should be glad to look at it.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figures support me? I am right.

Packed Meals, Essex

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Food how many packed meals a day are distributed to agricultural workers in the county of Essex under the rural meals scheme; and what steps he is taking to make this service more widely available in this county.

Mr. Webb: An average of about 24,000 meals a week are provided in Essex under the Rural Meals Scheme. My officers are ready to assist and advise any organisation that is willing to prepare and distribute this type of meal where there is a need for it. If my hon. Friend has any proposals to make to extend this valuable service in Essex, I should be glad to consider them.

Mr. Driberg: Does the initiative rest with my right hon. Friend's officers? Do they take any steps actively to stimulate the service?

Mr. Webb: I think they do; if they do not, I should like to stimulate my officers.

Mr. Baldwin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has not answered the Question, which inquired how many


packed meals get into the hands of the farm workers? Is he aware that the packed meals do not find their way into the hands of the farm workers but go to the community at large?

Mr. Webb: That is really a serious reflection on the farmers and I should not like to accept it without further examination.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Farm Tractors (Trailers)

Mr. Gerald Williams: asked the Minister of Transport if, during the harvest season, he will permit a farm tractor to draw two laden trailers provided a speed limit of five miles per hour is not exceeded.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Barnes): I have no power to grant such a concession.

Mr. Williams: Will the Minister bear in mind that it would be an enormous advantage to the farming community during hay making and the corn harvest for a tractor to be able to draw two trailers? If he has no power at the moment will he get that power before next season?

Mr. Barnes: I have no information to show that this is a widespread demand. There is no possibility of bringing in legislation before next season, but this is one of the matters to be borne in mind when amendment of the Road Traffic Acts is considered.

Railway Lost Property (Rewards)

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make regulations allowing rewards to railwaymen who return lost property, for whom there is at present no reward.

Mr. Barnes: Present arrangements in regard to the disposal of money or other property found by railway employees are of long standing and so far as I am aware have worked reasonably well. I see no sufficient reason to alter them.

Mr. Shepherd: Is it not clear that if a railwayman has no chance of obtaining a reward when he finds lost property, and be sees the lost property being sold

at public auction sales, he is not likely to return it? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have lost a gold watch and a dress shirt in railway sleeping compartments and that, therefore, the present arrangements cannot be very satisfactory?

Mr. Barnes: In the case of money, 50 per cent. of the value is returned, but "property" covers such a wide and varied range that it presents a special difficulty.

Sir Ralph Glyn: Is it not a reflection upon railwaymen to suggest that they should be rewarded for doing their duty? Is it not their business to return anything which they find on the railways?

Mr. Shepherd: Why does the right hon. Gentleman see a valid distinction between a reward for money and a reward for property, especially as property is now very much more valuable than when the regulations were framed and money is worth much less?

Mr. Barnes: There is really a great difference between the two when we consider the bulk of property which travels on the railways.

Parking, Inner London (Committee)

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Transport what practical steps he is now taking to provide additional parking facilities in the West End of London.

Mr. Barnes: I have set up a working party to consider the recommendations of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee in their report on London traffic congestion in regard to car parking in the inner London area and to formulate detailed proposals.

Mr. Shepherd: Is this really satisfactory? We have had a committee and now we are to have another committee. In a very short time we shall have a committee to supervise the committee which was set up to supervise the committee. That is not good enough in such an urgent situation as exists today.

Mr. Barnes: The hon. Member is wrong. The London and Home Counties Committee pointed out the urgency of the problem, and I have now appointed the chairman of that Committee, with others, to inquire how to give practical effect to their general recommendations.

Sir H. Williams: What is the difference between a working party and a committee? Does not one involve fewer letters?

Morden Tube Station (Queues)

Captain Ryder: asked the Minister of Transport if his attention has been drawn to the dangerous overcrowding outside Morden underground station during rush hours owing to the inadequate facilities for subsequent dispersal by bus; and what steps he is proposing to take to overcome this congestion.

Mr. Barnes: I am not aware that conditions outside Morden underground station during rush hours are dangerous. The limiting factor on the rate of dispersal of passengers at these times is the area available for buses outside the station. Subject to this the London Transport Executive maintain as intense a service as possible.

Captain Ryder: Is the Minister aware that long queues stretch across the highway at this point during the rush hours, that 120 or more buses an hour have to be handled there during the peak period, and that it is only through special measures that accidents are prevented? Apart from the danger, is he aware that great inconvenience is caused to thousands of people returning from work day after day and that it is a very widespread grievance in the neighbourhood?

Mr. Barnes: The comment of the hon. and gallant Gentleman itself emphasises the difficulty of the situation. This is a built-up area and the difficulty is in providing additional space for accommodation. That is why London Transport devotes special attention to the problem during the peak hours.

Mr. McCorquodale: In view of the very widespread complaints from all surrounding areas about this matter, will the Minister personally look into it again?

Mr. Barnes: Certainly, Sir.

Captain Ryder: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Merton and Morden Urban District Council have submitted plans for the enlargement of the area but are unable to get any redress of the grievance by this means?

Mr. Barnes: It is sometimes very difficult nowadays to carry out improvements

like this because of difficulties and restrictions in other directions, but this is an exceptionally difficult point.

Captain Ryder: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

By-pass, Totnes

Brigadier Rayner: asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the new considerations submitted to him, he will now authorise the completion of the Totnes by-pass.

Mr. Barnes: I do not know of any new considerations which would warrant my altering the decision of which I informed the hon. and gallant Member on 11th December last.

Brigadier Rayner: Will the right hon. Gentleman spend a night in South Devon, when I would show him how little has been done and how much remains to be done to the road. I think that would change his opinion.

Mr. Barnes: I am afraid that that would be exercising undue pressure upon a Minister.

Highlands and Islands (Roads and Ferries)

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: asked the Minister of Transport whether he has now given further consideration to the establishment of a trunk road through the Island of Skye.

Mr. Barnes: Yes, Sir. Traffic on island roads is not, in general, through traffic of the kind for which the trunk road system is provided, and I cannot therefore justify the establishment of a trunk road through the Island of Skye.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if there were a decent road through Skye, and a, steamer service from Dunvegan to the outer Islands that would be the best and fastest surface route to the outer Islands? In view of the tourist trade and of trade generally in the Highlands, would he not reconsider the matter?

Mr. Barnes: I cannot add anything to the statement I have made already.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: asked the Minister of Transport whether any special provision is to be made in the near future for the improvement of Highland roads for strategic purposes.

Mr. Barnes: A close liaison is maintained between the Service Departments and my engineers in order to ensure that defence requirements are not overlooked in the allocation of funds for road works.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: Do I understand from that reply that a special allocation is being made? Can the Minister give an assurance that no attempt is being made by the Government to curtail in any way expenditure by local authorities on unclassified roads?

Mr. Barnes: That raises two different matters. I would like the noble Lord to put down a Question on the second point. In regard to the point about defence, it appears to me that he is endeavouring to get me to make a statement on the degree of consultation, which I think would be undesirable.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will introduce legislation to make ferries in the Highlands and Islands part of the highway.

Mr. Barnes: I hope that there will be an opportunity before long of introducing a Measure to assist in bringing ferries into closer integration with the highway system.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: Does not the Minister recollect that he has been promising that for nearly a year? Can he make a statement soon about this, so that we can know when this integration will take place?

Mr. Barnes: I would remind the noble Lord that for an exceedingly long time nothing was done with regard to ferries. Under this Government at least an investigation has taken place and the draft legislation is almost complete. When time will be found to deal with it is another matter.

Consultative Committees

Mr. McAdden: asked the Minister of Transport how many area transport consultative committees he has so far appointed; how many he proposes still

to appoint; and how many meetings have so far been held by that appointed for East Anglia.

Mr. Barnes: The Transport Users' Consultative Committees for Scotland and Wales were appointed in 1949. England will be covered by nine such committees. Of these, eight have been appointed and I hope shortly to appoint the other. The committee for the East Anglia area has held one meeting.

Mr. McAdden: In view of the slow pace at which this matter is proceeding, does the Minister wish us to understand that he has now been converted to the view of his friend the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), who says that they were appointed for window-dressing purposes only and cannot be of any use?

Mr. Barnes: I certainly do not agree that they were appointed for window-dressing purposes. The type of organisation which has accepted an invitation to serve on these committees is a clear indication that the matter is taken seriously.

Roundabout, Sturminster Marshall

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Transport on what grounds he permitted the sum of over £900 to be spent on cultivating and planting the land of the new roundabout on a trunk road at Roundhouse, Sturminster Marshall; and what has been the total expenditure to date, on making this roundabout.

Mr. Barnes: The central island of this roundabout was planted so as to obviate dazzle which is a frequent cause of accidents. The total expenditure has been £444 for land and £11,536 for works of which the estimated cost of the planting operations was about £1,000.

Mr. Crouch: Is the Minister aware that quite a number of local authorities have the planting of the trees and shrubs done by local nurserymen, who use these sites for advertising? There is no cost whatever to the local authorities. Why does his Department spend such a large sum of money in this way?

Mr. Barnes: I am not aware that the local nurserymen were not consulted. That appears to me to be a different point.

Mr. Crouch: The Minister has said that he is not aware that nurserymen were not consulted, but is he aware that in the adjoining local authority area he could drive round a large roundabout and see the name of the nurserymen posted there?

Mr. Barnes: It is the normal practice for my Department to work through the local authorities as our agents.

Mr. Vane: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us the acreage of this forest because, according to Forestry Commission costs, it must be at least 50 acres?

Oral Answers to Questions — PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

Mr. Ian Harvey: asked the Prime Minister which Minister is responsible for conducting the activities which are undertaken in this country equivalent to those conducted by the Psychological Warfare Board set up by the President of the United States of America.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): It is unprofitable to seek to draw precise parallels between the machinery of Government in this country and that in the United States of America, and there is no organisation here precisely similar to the Board to which the hon. Member refers.

Mr. Harvey: Does the Prime Minister not feel that in view of the great importance and the technical nature of this subject, it might be as well to take some additional steps in the matter in view of the lack of success so far achieved by the existing organisation?

The Prime Minister: I do not accept the statement of the hon. Member. These matters are dealt with by Departments in the usual way. I do not think that the setting up of a special board would be a good way of doing it in this country, because our methods are rather different from those of the United States of America.

Lord Dunglass: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise—I am sure he does—that in every theatre of the cold war now it is vital to co-ordinate American and British propaganda? Cannot he give us some clearer picture, at any rate, of the reason for turning this down?

The Prime Minister: There has been a debate about it, and if I am asked for more details I will give them. I was asked which Minister was responsible for conducting activities equivalent to those conducted by the Psychological Warfare Board, which is rather a different matter.

Mr. Profumo: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the present machinery has been sufficiently flexible to arrange for any special broadcast to Persia during the present crisis?

The Prime Minister: I should like to see that on the Order Paper

Oral Answers to Questions — FALKLAND ISLANDS

Brigadier Rayner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what countries have made landings in British Antarctica; how many have been made in the case of each such country; and whether in each case foreign personnel are still in possession.

The Minister of State (Mr. Younger): I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies to a similar Question on 13th June.

Brigadier Rayner: Would His Majesty's Government now do what we have urged for a long time from this side of the House, that is, take a stronger line with regard to these impertinent intrusions, and thus halt the catastrophic fall in our prestige which has led to the recent happenings in the Middle East?

Mr. Younger: I do not accept the comment made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The position of His Majesty's Government in this matter has already been fully explained on several occasions.

Sir H. Williams: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell me why his boss never answers Questions in the House?

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN OFFICE STAFF

Mr. Ralph Morley: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the necessity for securing as members of the diplomatic staff men and women who have had working-class experience


and understand modern trends of thought, he will revise the method of entrance to the administrative grade of the Foreign Office.

Mr. Younger: No, Sir. A thorough reform of the Foreign Service, on the lines set out in the "Proposals for the Reform of the Foreign Service," published as a White Paper in 1943 (Command 6420), has been carried out in recent years. The system of recruitment has been recast to facilitate the entry of candidates with suitable qualifications from all sections of the community. The competitions for entry to the Foreign Service, which are conducted by the Civil Service Commission, are designed to ensure that the candidates selected have the qualities of personality and intelligence necessary for a good understanding of modern trends of thought: I have no reason to think that the reforms are not achieving their object.

Mr. Morley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the present Secretary of State for Scotland said a few months ago that he was considering broadening the method of entry into the Foreign Service? Has that taken place?

Mr. Younger: If my hon. Friend will look at the White Paper to which I referred, and also to a memorandum issued recently by the Civil Service Commissioners, he will see that there is no restriction so far as the procedure for entry into the Service is concerned.

Mr. Peter Smithers: Is not the proper way to take the best men from whatever place they come?

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can my right hon. Friend say how many of the present staff were educated in approved schools?

Mr. Morley: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many members of the administrative grade of the staff of the Foreign Office received their first education in a school under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education or the Board of Education.

Mr. Younger: Full particulars of the first education of the members of Branch A of His Majesty's Foreign Service are not readily available, but 24 such officers serving in the Foreign Office and a further 62 serving in posts overseas are known to have received their first education at

schools maintained by or assisted by local education authorities or otherwise grant-aided from public funds.

Mr. Donner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the new chief Foreign Office security officer to replace Mr. Askew, due to retire this month, has been either selected or appointed; and what steps he is proposing to take to improve upon existing security measures in the Foreign Service.

Mr. Younger: Mr. Askew is the officer-in-charge of the team of security guards who control access to the Foreign Office and supervise the physical security arrangements of all Foreign Office buildings in London. He is not in charge of the Security Department of the Foreign Office, of which he is only one of the members. Mr. Askew is retiring on reaching the age limit. His replacement is under consideration.
As regards the second part of the Question, the Security Department of the Foreign Office is in constant touch with the security authorities with a view to improving and making modifications, as the need arises, in the security system. It would not be in the public interest to disclose the actual steps being taken.

Mr. Donner: In view of the fact that this officer was both efficient and conscientious, will the right hon. Gentleman revise the regulations which governed his work and also review the general security measures of the Foreign Office in order to allay public anxiety?

Mr. Younger: I am very glad to hear the hon. Member say that this officer was conscientious and efficient because some extremely unjust statements have appeared in the Press. I am not aware that the instructions need revision in the way suggested.

Mr. Russell: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many members of the Foreign Service have been dismissed or transferred for having associations with Communist circles of a kind which throw doubt on their reliability.

Mr. Younger: As I stated in my reply to the hon. Member for Paddington, South (Mr. de Chair) on 18th June, three people have been removed from the Foreign Service on the grounds of their Communist affiliations. These persons were


not dismissed but transferred to other Government Departments, and no member of the Foreign Service has been dismissed on these grounds.

Mr. Russell: Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that it is possible for anybody to have associations with Communist circles which do not throw doubt on his reliability? Does he not think that the phrase which he used last week was most misleading?

Mr. Younger: No, I do not. It entirely depends what sort of association it is, of course.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is it not the fact that past membership of Communist circles at least proves that those concerned, if not disloyal, are at any rate of a very erratic nature and does not this in itself make them unsuitable for confidential employment?

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Heligoland

Professor Savory: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether, before handing over the Island of Heligoland to the German authorities, he will ask for an assurance that the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890, under which native laws and customs should be undisturbed, shall be carried out and that the clause in the Treaty of Versailles, in accordance with which no fortifications were to be erected on the island, shall be adhered to:
(2) whether, before handing over the island of Heligoland to the German authorities, he will ask for an assurance that Article 12, Subsection 6, of the Anglo-German Agreement, 1890, guaranteeing the rights to property of private persons and corporations, shall be carried out, and also that Subsection 7, ensuring the rights of British fishermen to anchorage in all weathers, to the sale of fish, and the landing and drying of nets, shall be adhered to.

Mr. Younger: The Anglo-German Agreement of 1890 was not revived after the 1914–18 war and is, therefore, no longer in force. As far as fortifications are concerned, the hon. Member will no doubt be aware that the Occupying

Powers have prohibited them under direct Allied demilitarisation legislation which applies to Heligoland as to the rest of the Federal territory. No question of obtaining assurances from the German Federal Government therefore arises at present.

Professor Savory: Would it not be possible, before handing over the Island on 1st March next year, to secure at least that the Frisian language shall be maintained, because that is the matter to which the natives attach by far the greatest importance? The Frisian language should be taught in their schools, and the teaching of the various subjects should be given in that language.

Mr. Younger: I am sure that the authorities will take note of that, and I, of course, will always be glad to receive any representations from the hon. Member; but so far as the agreement ensuring these rights is concerned, I am afraid that that no longer applies.

Unmarried Mothers

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further efforts have been made during the past six months to secure financial assistance for the unmarried German mothers of children whose fathers are British soldiers or civilians; and what conversations in respect of this problem have taken place with the German authorities.

Mr. Younger: As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on 17th May last year; the position regarding legal remedies has not changed since that date. I would add, however, that although an affiliation order cannot be legally enforced, the army authorities do their best to encourage the man to admit responsibility and to facilitate payments to such unmarried German women. The Forces Help Society, though unable to give direct financial help, also furnish whatever assistance is within their power.
As regards the second half of the Question, no conversations in this respect have taken place with the German authorities, nor have the German authorities raised the matter recently.

Mr. Sorensen: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is still a grave problem and is giving serious concern to many


people both in Germany and in this country? In view of the fact that it affects not only Germany but other countries, will not my right hon. Friend initiate action to deal with this important problem?

Mr. Younger: There will, no doubt, be discussions on this matter as relations with the German authorities are put on a contractual basis.

Oral Answers to Questions — VIENNA (ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING)

Professor Savory: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware of the attempt made on 11th June to kidnap Matthaus Bujukli, an engineer in the British Sector of Vienna, when several men in civilian clothes attempted to force him into a car, and that he was severely bruised in the struggle; and whether a protest has been made to the Control Commission against this action committed in the British Sector of Vienna.

Mr. Younger: Yes, Sir, I am aware of this incident. It fits into the pattern of recent kidnappings in Vienna. These formed the subject of strong representations by the British, French and American representatives at a meeting of the Allied Council for Austria on 15th June.

Professor Savory: Will special precautions be taken to protect this gentleman, who is a noted anti-Communist and who has rendered great service to this country? If he is still living in the British zone, surely we ought to be able to protect him?

Mr. Younger: I am not informed of the exact conditions in which he is now living, but I am sure that that will be taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH SUBJECTS (EXIT PERMITS)

Mr. Burden: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will introduce legislation to enable him to control the visits of British subjects to countries against which this country is at war under the aegis of the United Nations.

Mr. Younger: The refusal of a passport would not prevent a person from

going to any country which wished to admit him. The only effective way, therefore, of preventing British subjects from leaving this country in order to visit foreign countries would be to re-introduce a system of exit permits, but for this no powers exist.

Mr. Burden: In view of the recent unfortunate episode, will the right hon. Gentleman give the House the assurance that in future any person who is likely to make broadcasts about British troops over foreign wireless systems is unlikely to leave the country if such statements are likely to be to the detriment of British troops fighting under the aegis of the United Nations?

Mr. Younger: I find that proposition totally absurd.

Mr. John Hynd: Will my right hon. Friend take note of the representations from the other side to introduce exit permits?

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA (BRITISH MISSIONARIES, TREATMENT)

Mr. Llewellyn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what information he has received concerning the treatment of British missionaries in China by the Chinese Government; what representations have been made by His Majesty's Government; and what replies have been received.

Mr. Younger: Missionaries in China of all nationalities are suffering considerable obstruction and difficulty, as indeed are all foreigners. One British missionary is detained by the Chinese authorities on undisclosed charges; representations have been made on his behalf to the Chinese Government by His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking. No reply has been received.

Air Commodore Harvey: Does the Government's representative in Peking ever get a reply to anything? If not, why keep him there?

Mr. Younger: I think he sometimes gets a reply. We would not attempt to deny that his position and the treatment he receives are not satisfactory, but he does, in very difficult circumstances, perform useful duties which help the remaining British community there.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUNGARY (RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION)

Mr. Hugh Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the persecution of religion in Hungary, His Majesty's Government has protested under that Article of the Peace Treaty with Hungary guaranteeing freedom of worship.

Mr. Younger: His Majesty's Government and the other Western signatories of the Hungarian Peace Treaty have taken every step open to them under the Treaty to enforce the Human Rights Article. In accordance with a Resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations last November, we are preparing the evidence of the violation by the Hungarian Government of this Article for submission to the Secretary General. Our submission will include all available evidence of religious persecution, of which a fresh wave appears to be heralded by the trial of Archbishop Grosz. I do not consider that any protest to the Hungarian Government would be effective nor is it possible now to comment on this trial since the proceedings have not yet ended. I should like, however, to express once again our deep concern at the continuing evidence of cruelty, oppression and persecution in Hungary.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind, whether or not he thinks that any protest would be effective, that there is a very general desire that the public opinion of this country should be expressed about its abhorrence of these affairs in Hungary?

Mr. Younger: I am aware of that, and I hope that the statement I have just made will contribute to that end.

Mr. John E. Haire: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is very important to encourage people living in Hungary with the evidence that we are taking steps, even though we think at times that they are futile—that at least there should be some encouragement to them to go on resisting?

Mr. Younger: We are, of course, taking such measures as can be taken collectively through the United Nations.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN MINISTERS' DEPUTIES' CONFERENCE (TERMINATION)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the termination of the Foreign Ministers' Deputies' Conference at Paris.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The House will be aware of the statement made by the Delegations of the United Kingdom, France and the United States at Paris on 21st June—that the Soviet attitude had unhappily made further discussions on the present basis useless. It is a matter for deep regret that this situation should have been reached after four months of discussion in which no fewer than 74 meetings have taken place between the representatives of the four Powers, in the course of which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has acted with patience and skill.
This statement made it clear that the other three Powers hoped that the Soviet Government might still agree through the diplomatic channel to accept the invitation to a meeting of the Foreign Ministers. A wide measure of agreement was, in fact, reached in the discussions at Paris, including agreement to insert in an agenda nearly all the topics raised by the Soviet Delegation, one after another.
The United Kingdom entered these talks with a genuine desire to reach agreement on an agenda for a meeting of the Foreign Ministers. We wanted—and we still want—to find a basis for discussion of the root causes of the tension which threatens to disturb the peace of the world. In the course of these talks we were driven to conclude that there was not the same desire on the part of the Soviet Union to find an objective and fair-minded basis for a successful conference. It seemed to us that the Soviet Union was trying to weaken the Western Powers while leaving herself strong, rather than trying to find a basis of settlement advantageous to all.
A meeting of Foreign Ministers must he ready to take realistic decisions on concrete and definite questions which are at issue between the Powers. It must deal with the real and fundamental causes of the tension. A meeting to discuss the tension will be useless—indeed, it would


be harmful—if it is merely to be used as a propaganda platform and a mudslinging match ending in breakdown.
There has been in some quarters a misunderstanding of our refusal to accept the Soviet condition that the Atlantic Treaty and United States bases in Europe should be an item on the agenda. This is no mere hair-splitting about words. It really is basic to the whole problem of a conference. The North Atlantic Treaty is a consequence of the tension in the world and not a cause of it. The subject of this Treaty would be bound to be mentioned—like a lot of other matters—in the course of discussion of the very tension which gave rise to it. But we cannot accept that the Treaty itself should be one of the matters on which the four Foreign Ministers can take decisions.
The North Atlantic Treaty is part of the defensive arrangements we have been compelled to make to protect ourselves. That is why we cannot agree to make it a subject for negotiation with the Soviet Union. Incidentally, the Soviet Government have not suggested—and neither have we—that the treaties of the Soviet Union should be on the agenda as matters for decision between the Foreign Ministers of the four Powers; they have merely said that these treaties can be discussed.
The House will note that the offer to hold a conference remains open. I am willing to take any chance that offers to get together and do effective business for the peace of the world.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Foreign Minister rule out, in the future, a meeting of the Powers at a higher level?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir.

Mr. Eden: While the House will generally endorse the statement of the Foreign Secretary, might I ask whether there is not another barrier to the decisions about the Atlantic Treaty, which is, of course, the Treaty being signed by 12 Powers? How would it be possible for two Powers, or three of them, to take decisions in respect of the Treaty with a Power which is not a signatory?

Mr. Morrison: I think the right hon. Gentleman is right. It was signed by 12 Powers, only three of whom would be present at the four Power talks and who

would be acting without the agreement of the other nine Powers.

Mr. Clement Davies: is my assumption correct, referring to the reply to the hon. Member for Ayrshire, South (Mr. Emrys Hughes), that the Government would lose no opportunity whatsoever for a further meeting, whether at a higher level or at Foreign Ministers' level? If it were possible to get a successful meeting without an agenda would the Government, nevertheless, consider it?

Mr. Morrison: I think the offer my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made with my authority, namely, a draft agreed agenda, a split agenda, a skeleton agenda and, finally, all three together, with the exchange of Notes, really went as far as we possibly could to meet them. But let me assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that if there is any opportunity, with any real likelihood of useful results, of talks taking place, he may be sure that the Government will seize such an opportunity.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend say whether it is a fact that the Russians would have been content to hold the conference if the question of the Atlantic Treaty had been listed among those items which the Western Powers had not agreed to discuss and, if that were so, was there any vital reason why we could not have accepted that, since it did not involve any discussion of it at all, still less any decision?

Mr. Morrison: I do not know where that would have landed us. It seems to me to be a most uncertain and confusing situation. I must make it quite plain that the Government, with their associates, are unwilling to submit the Atlantic Pact in any sense for effective decision by the four Ministers. We think that would be wrong and unfair to our associates. Moreover, there is this to be said: In the light of experience, even if we had offered to include it in that or some other form there is no guarantee that the Russians would not have come along with some other item.

Mr. Hughes: Would it not be possible, if no agenda could be drawn up about items on which the four Powers disagreed, for the Foreign Secretary to take the


initiative in drawing up an agenda on the subjects on which all the Powers agree; that is, the danger of war to all?

Mr. Morrison: I think that that is near enough what we did. I do not think that there can be any doubt about our bona fides and genuine efforts to get an agenda.

Mr. S. Silverman: Is it not a fact that one of the proposals we made was to have two lists of subjects: one those we agreed to discuss and one those we did not agree to discuss? If there were already a list of such items which we did not agree to discuss, and if the only thing which pre- vented the Conference was these things we disagreed on, items such as the Atlantic Treaty, was it not a pity to have let the opportunity go by the board on such a very small point?

Mr. Morrison: With great respect, this is not a small problem; it is a very big one. I really think that this time the British, American and French have been right. The split agenda to which my hon. Friend is referring was not an agenda on which there were items which we or the Russians were unwilling to discuss. What was in dispute was the wording of the items and the order in which they should be taken. Therefore, they were in a different category from the particular matter to which my hon. Friend referred.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (MR. MALIK'S SPEECH)

Mr. Eden: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make about the speech broadcast by the Soviet delegate to the Security Council on Saturday, 23rd June.

Mr. H. Morrison: I am glad to have this opportunity to make a short statement on Korea on the anniversary of the attack on South Korea.
It has been and is the constant endeavour of His Majesty's Government to bring the fighting to an end and to promote a settlement by peaceful negotiation so that our Forces can be withdrawn and so that the people of Korea may themselves shoulder the responsibility of shaping their own future. It is regrettable that the efforts made by the Good Offices Committee in recent months have not met with any response from the other side.
Mr. Malik, in his broadcast in New York on Saturday, proposed a conference to discuss a cease-fire in Korea. In view of the failure of previous attempts any undue optimism would be unwise, but we welcome what we hope may be an indication that the Soviet Government is now disposed to support the efforts which we and other members of the United Nations have been making to bring the fighting to an end. His Majesty's Government are already actively studying ways and means of following up this possible opening. If, as I hope, Mr. Malik's suggestion was made with the sincere desire to bring about peace in Korea and if these sentiments are shared by the Chinese and North Koreans, then it may be possible to make progress in the direction we all desire.
It is appropriate that we should take stock of the position on this anniversary. The immediate objective of driving back the attacking forces to the general area from which the original act of aggression was launched has now been largely attained. Great credit is due to the United Nations Forces for the military success that has been achieved, in which our own Forces have played a gallant and distinguished part.
Our objectives remain the same: to limit the fighting to Korea, and to bring it to an end as soon as possible so that peace may be restored and the heavy task of repairing the ravages of war may be undertaken. Mr. Malik's broadcast, marred though it was by objectionable references to our own policy and those of friendly Powers, is important if it means that the Russians, and perhaps the Chinese and North Koreans, desire, as we most certainly do, to bring the fighting to an end.
For many months His Majesty's Government have been continuously engaged in consultations with other Governments towards these ends. Consultations taking also into account Mr. Malik's broadcast will proceed.

Mr. Eden: I do not wish to quarrel, nor do I think the House as a whole would, with the right hon. Gentleman's observations on Mr. Malik's broadcast, since that is obviously a matter on which the Foreign Secretary will have to consult his other principal allied colleagues. But would the right hon. Gentleman be good


enough to assure us that when there has been opportunity for that he will inform the House of the position and the attitude of His Majesty's Government?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir. As soon as I can usefully give any further information to the House without complicating those discussions, I shall be most happy to do so.

Mr. J. Hynd: Will my right hon. Friend, when consulting his Allies in this matter, ensure that in the event of a ceasefire being arranged adequate arrangements will be made to ensure that the cease-fire shall be fully applicable among all the participants in Korea, including the South Korean forces?

Mr. Morrison: I think that if a ceasefire were arranged it must mean that everybody ceases fire, otherwise the fire will not cease.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Can the right hon. Gentleman supplement in one particular what he said? I think Mr. Malik's words were that discussions should be started between the belligerents. Is he aware who, in Mr. Malik's opinion, are the belligerents against the Forces of the United Nations?

Mr. Morrison: I could not answer for Mr. Malik without ample notice.

NEW MEMBER SWORN

Joseph Thomas Price, Esquire, for Westhoughton.

Orders of the Day — FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN (ADDITIONAL LOANS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.44 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Stokes): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
In doing so, I am asking the House to make available to Festival Gardens, Ltd., loans not exceeding £1 million in addition to those authorised by the Act of 1949. The House will be aware of the history but the estimated requirements now amount to £2,400,000 compared with the June, 1950, estimate of £1,100,000, and the possible loss is, of course, correspondingly increased above the then estimated loss of £100,000. I say "possible loss" because it does not necessarily follow that all the extra money involved will in the end terminate in financial loss.
The short history of the reasons for the Bill is simply that the need arises from over-spending. I would say to the House that there is nothing to conceal. I have endeavoured in the White Paper, so far as possible, to make the full facts and figures available to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen. As they will know, the White Paper contains the reports from two reputable firms of chartered accountants—as well as the observations of the Board of Festival Gardens, Ltd. on one of those reports—Messrs. Moores, Carson and Watson, who made a report on the commitments of Festival Gardens, Ltd., and Messrs. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co., on the work of the contractors at site, which I would remind the House is as yet inconclusive. I would add, though perhaps it is unnecessary for me to do so, that both these reports were caused to be made by Festival Gardens, Ltd., at my request.
That being so, and as I understand that it is not proposed to take the whole of the time of today's Sitting in debating the Bill, I do not propose to go into all the details contained in the White Paper but manifestly there are some points on which the Opposition at all events would expect observations from the Minister in charge. With the facts all in print, may I say at the outset that I do not suppose that Members will expect me to castigate individuals who cannot be here to defend


themselves. As is known, certain actions have been taken of which the House is aware, and I do not propose to refer, if I can avoid it, to any individual in detail.
Suffice it to say that the whole story is regrettable; I do not think that anybody can deny that. But I wish also to say at the outset that perhaps it will not turn out to be quite as bad as it first looks even from the financial point of view. I say that because, whereas in June of last year the estimated total cost was of the order of £800,000, owing to changes which will be evident in the White Paper, and to which I will presently make reference, it is quite within reasonable possibility that the capital value of the work undertaken will be considerably in advance of that, and I am advised it might well be, as a capital asset, well over £1 million.
It may be asked why I cannot say more definitely now what that figure should be. The answer simply is that it is impossible to give any really accurate figure until the whole job has been measured up, just as it is almost impossible to give with any clarity a full explanation of how the extras came to arise. I will explain a little later just what has happened in regard to Festival Gardens, Limited, in relation to the work of the contractors.
The main criticism, as I see it, which runs through certainly the first of the two reports is in regard to the delay in the start of the operation. That involved a rush job, which is always unsatisfactory. The question that naturally arises is whether that could have been avoided. Perhaps it would be best if I reminded the House of the history of this Festival adventure.
The general plan of the Festival was decided upon in March, 1947, and whatever the doubting Thomases may say now or did say then, and whatever the gloom that was cast upon the project, without any doubt whatever—I say this from some experience of having been up and down the country opening some of these great exhibitions and festivals—it has been received with acclaim by the country. I consider that great credit is due to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for having thrust the whole scheme through. That started in 1947.
In 1948 the Festival of Britain Council was formed. I would remind the House

that it is an all-party Council and an entirely voluntary advisory body. It has no executive power. It worked most energetically, as so many voluntary bodies do, and I am not throwing any criticism on it today for what has since happened. The South tank project was, of course, the main item, but the site proved insufficient in area to give room for the fun fair which all parties—and there were all parties represented on the Council—thought was indispensable to a festival of this kind. So a search was made for additional room in an appropriate quarter and those two factors combined to provide a difficult problem to solve.
During the winter of 1948–49—that was after the decision to go on the South Bank—negotiations were carried on with the London County Council, having in mind the idea of a five-year plan for a fun fair in Battersea Park. This meant that all sorts of things had to be done. Arrangements had to be gone into with the police; the catering people and the transport authorities had to be consulted; and, generally speaking, there had to be a squaring up of what physical commitments would be involved in deciding on such a site before actually entering into it. Unfortunately, when the London County Council were able formally to consult the local authorities, Battersea, and Chelsea, the five-year plan proved unacceptable.
In June, 1949, which I agree is very late after the commencement of the original idea, plans had to be modified, and very big alterations made in an endeavour to recover the total outlay in one year instead of five. All sorts of projects originally suggested were cut down, and the whole thing modified in what, as it turned out to be, was really the almost insuperable task of paying back the capital cost in a short season of five or six months. The one-year plan was finally announced on 1st July, 1949, and the Festival Gardens Board was convened on 25th November. The contractors started work on 1st April, 1950.
I will go further into what happened in the sad story of the site in a few minutes, but while it may be argued that, looking at it by and large, that seemed a long time. I would say to the House that it is quite easy to be wise after the event. The project was a magnificent one.


in my view, and nobody could have anticipated the difficulties, both national and local, into which those responsible ran and which unfortunately had a cumulative effect with the late start, which was perhaps one of the root causes of all the trouble.
The second criticism or question constantly put to me—quite apart from the opinion of the Festival Office and their Council and their opinion was that this fair was an essential concomitant of a festival of this nature—is why have gardens at all, and whether the gardens were desirable, and whether they could be made a commercial proposition. I can only answer that by looking round at what has happened in other parts of the world. In the light of what has happened in other cities, the answer is emphatically, "Yes" to both questions.
In the light of the experience we have had to date—and although it is not very long since the fun fair opened, and it opened late—the answer is tremendously, "Yes". This is a thing which London has needed for years, and at last we have something. How long it will stay is another matter. But we now have something available for the people which is of a most unexampled character. If any hon. Gentleman has not yet been to the fun fair and Festival Gardens, may I cordially invite him to pay a visit, and I am sure he will endorse everything I have said.
Now I come to the sad story of what happened on the site. I do not pretend to be able to give chapter and verse from the inception of the scheme, because I had nothing to do with it in its early days. I can recall the facts only so far as I know them. Undoubtedly the delay in making a start was one of the root causes of the trouble. The fact that the architects had not time to prepare their drawings, which meant that in fact tenders were done to schedules which gave the contractors or would-be contractors no opportunity of studying the full scheme—as is always desirable in these cases—made close tendering and planning ahead impossible.
As anybody who knows anything about these schemes will realise, unless one can have drawings ahead of the contract and give the contractor time and

opportunity to make a close and detailed study of the plan, it inevitably adds to the cost. I am not an architect; I only know that for constructional drawing jobs. anything from six to nine months clear from the time the decision to go ahead is taken till the time the contractor is ready is both necessary and desirable. A combination of a delayed start and the fact that the drawings, etc., were not available, led people concerned with the job—not many of them having had any experience of this sort of work—to a genuine misconception of the magnitude of the task.
In the White Paper various points have been put forward as to how the extra cost arose. I do not propose to go into all of them in detail, but without any doubt whatever the absolutely exceptional and abominable weather from November to March had something to do with the result. I do not claim, as has been claimed in some quarters, that that accounts for it all, because I do not think it does. There is something worse than wet weather and that is frozen weather, but from November to March it was inordinately wet. The rainfall was 18.12 inches as against 10.11 normally, which, in a low-lying place like Battersea Park had a tremendous effect.
It may be of historical interest to the House to know that at one time Battersea Park was Cubitt's claypit for the construction of Belgravia. The low-lying land there, with the rain pouring down, made drainage a great difficulty; and the general mud and slush in which the men had to endeavour to work was, in spite of their protective clothing, exceedingly unpleasant and added to the expense. Added to that, the late start and the way in which plans dribbled on to the job instead of the whole thing being cut and dried led to the site itself being flooded with labour at the most inconvenient time, somewhere about November to January. This proved too much for the contractor, who, despite his best efforts, found the administration of 2,000 men and more quite beyond anything he had experienced before.
It is a fact that these irregularities in payments about which I shall have something to say in a moment, and to which reference has been made both by Questions in the House and in the report itself, in the most part took place


during the time when the site was what I would call flooded with labour. This inevitably led to waste and inefficiency, all of which was swept to one side by those anxious to make the best possible endeavour to get the whole thing open on time and the contractors off the site by 31st March.
As there has been so much criticism of the behaviour of the labour on the site, may I say that it is perfectly true that the men got out of hand and that certain political elements in fact boasted that they were exploiting this to the limit. There was an unending series of strikes, mass meetings, go-slow movements, working to rule, and so on, and everything possible was done by certain elements to impede the job.
But, when I have said that, let this also be recognised by the House—that the job was finished, and that there were a very considerable number of faithful. hard-working men on the job, without whom it could never have been put through at all, and who were as disgusted as were some of us at the behaviour of the rest. I know that I was jibed at the other day when I asked where credit was due, and I said that I had in mind the fact that the majority of the real craftsmen on the job did magnificent work, despite the vicissitudes with which they had to contend.
Then came the turn of the tide, the details of which are set out in the White Paper. There, again, it may be unbecoming for me to claim credit for the turn of the tide at a given event in the neighbourhood of Easter. Changes were made in the administration, and a new administration took charge. I think credit is due to the present managing director, who took over the job and has pulled it together and produced what is really a first-class paying proposition, and let us make no mistake about it. He is working without pay, which is not a thing I like very much, but nevertheless he offered his services and it seemed the best thing to do to accept them, and the whole show is now a well-managed going concern. The fun fair was opened on 11th May, and the Festival Gardens about two or three weeks later.
I said at the beginning that two reputable firms had made thorough investigations, and, if it is so desired by the company, these investigations can be

taken further. The irregular wages payments, about which I have heard so much, have not in the event turned out to be as serious as would have seemed to be the case at first. I admit at once that any irregular wages payments are undesirable, and it is no use claiming that they are only small in comparison to the whole. It is just as well that the House should get the matter in the right perspective.
Those people who were thinking, as the daily papers had led them to believe, that there were legions of people going round and drawing full pay and not clocking in at all, or clocking in and then going off to do another job, had a grossly exaggerated idea what the facts really were. Since the report was published, I have had a communication from the accountants who went into the costs on the site. They say that the total amount paid in irregular fashion to people who either were not there, except for the purpose of collecting their money, or who managed to collect it twice, is £800, which I agree is still £800 too much. It is 2 per cent. of total wages bill.

Mr. Harold Macmillan: On the 4 per cent. invested?

Mr. Stokes: No, I am coming to that. The 4 per cent., to which reference has been made, has nothing to do with that at all. With reference to discrepancies in the bookkeeping, again they may not have been wrong payments, but may have been payments to people but not for the right job. Although the accountants have said that 4 per cent. is not unusually high, it is too high to be proper and they would have preferred it to have been lower. That 4 per cent. was not money necessarily improperly paid out, but the total amount of the discrepancies in the bookkeeping—money which may or may not have been properly paid, and again, that cannot be ascertained until a further full investigation is made. At any rate, I do not propose to pass judgment, because I cannot do so. Festival Gardens, Ltd., can go further if they see fit, and that will have to wait until they have decided on what settlement they will make with the contractor.
That matter, in fact, is still sub judice, and probably the less said about the ultimate sum to be paid the better it will be at this moment. The difference be


tween what the contractor is to be paid or is claiming and what Festival Gardens, Ltd., think they ought to pay is, so far as I am aware, a considerable one, and obviously it would not be advantageous to the negotiations which they are conducting if I were to give details of it today. I must therefore ask the House to wait until they have completed their negotiations and more facts are available.
I now want to say something about the position of the loan and the extra money for which I am now asking. The original loan authorised the payment to Festival Gardens, Ltd.. of £770,000, of which £200,000 was to be subscribed, and has been subscribed, by the London County Council. A condition of the L. C. C. loan was that their loss should be limited to £40,000; in other words, whatever happens and whatever the loss may prove to be on the whole of this venture, the L. C. C. are to be repaid £160,000 out of their £200,000, anyway. Let us be quite clear about that.
If the Gardens are closed down at the end of October, there is going to be no repayment of the £40,000 to the L. C. C., and no payment to the Treasury. If, however, the Gardens are kept open beyond that date—on which subject I shall have something more to say in a minute—after the expenditure of a sum which will be necessary to convert some of these temporary buildings into something more permanent, without any doubt whatever, from our experience so far, the whole of the loan can be steadily paid off.
The fact of the matter is that the Gardens have been universally acclaimed by all sorts of funny people whom I never expected would like them at all. I am talking of my own friends, not strangers. The most unexpected people ring me up to say what a wonderful conception and what a magnificent show it is. If public opinion turns out to be in favour of continuing—and, of course, public opinion includes all those interested in the immediate vicinity—I shall be entirely sympathetic to continuing, including the fun fair. That, however, remains to be seen. I hope that hon. Members, in making their speeches today, will give us some lead as to what they are thinking on this subject.
The House understands that the Bill authorises additional loans up to

£1 million, but that sum has not yet been required, and only some £522,000 has been advanced. I certainly shall not advance a penny more than is necessary, but it would be impossible to say at this moment what will be the total sum that will be required until a settlement with the contractor has been effected. Obviously, any answer that I give would be indefinite, added to which there is the sum of £100,000 to be spent on reinstatement. Of course, the revenue is very buoyant at the moment, much more buoyant than anybody anticipated, and it could not be taken into account in my calculations in estimating the possible loss. The revenue buoyancy entirely depends on two factors, over which none of us has any control whatever. They are the public fancy and the weather. If the public fancy goes on as it has so far shown itself, we ought to be all right.
Here, may I lay by the heels one scurrilous story put out the other day that there had been a large number of accidents at the fun fair. One of the daily newspapers said that, up to the end of May, there were 1,200 or 1,300 accidents. Actually, on investigation, it was found that these figures included all those people who had turned giddy on the "Big Dipper," people who went to the nurse for an aspirin and all sorts of things. The number of people actually involved in accidents is nine, whereas over three million people have been carried on the various amusements. I think that speaks well for the various rides. [HON. MEMBERS: "What paper?"] The "Daily Express." With regard to the continuation of the Gardens—

Mr. McAllister: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the question of the original loan, does not he think it a pity that Mr. H. N. Butler, F. C. A., should refer in the first paragraph of his report to the £770,000 as the estimated expenditure, when quite clearly it was the amount of the loan? That statement tends to give a misdirection from the beginning to a very fair-minded report.

Mr. Stokes: I am glad my hon. Friend has drawn my attention to the point. Of course, the £770,000 was not the original estimated cost at all. It was the original estimated liquid capital with which to carry the show through. That is all it was meant to be, having regard to certain


moneys coming into the Company from concessionaires and having regard to the revenue they expected to collect from time to time once the show opened.
But with regard to the continuation of the Gardens and fun fair, the Government are entirely in the hands of the House and the local authorities regarding what they wish. When hon. Members criticise what has happened, as no doubt they will this afternoon, I hope at the same time they will not forget that this has been a great success to date, and that the Government would welcome an expression of opinion whether the fun fair should be continued or not.

Mr. Edgar Granville: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House a rough estimate of what he thinks it might cost to make these temporary Festival buildings suitable for another year?

Mr. Stokes: I should be very hesitant about doing that without looking at the estimates myself. It would all depend on whether we went on for one, two or three years. It might very well be that if we carried on for one year we could patch up as we went. As I say, I should be very hesitant to give a figure. If we were to go the full five years, I should think that an extra £150,000 to £200,000 would probably be necessary to ensure the continuation of the buildings as they are.

Mr. Granville: Which would be covered by this Bill?

Mr. Stokes: For the immediate financing, yes, but I have not the slightest doubt whatever—let us be quite clear about this—that this scheme has such tremendous revenue-bearing possibilities that the whole of the loan can be paid off. I would reckon that within four or five years the sums already expended could be written off out of profits or margins on the right side, or whatever one wished to call them, on the operations of the Gardens and fun fair jointly. But it is always a dangerous thing to anticipate that revenue is going to run at a regular level. It is going splendidly at the present time, and, provided the weather holds and the public continue to like it, as they appear to do at the moment, I see no difficulty whatever in

paying off the whole of the loan in four or five years, and, indeed, that is what I am advised.
I want to end my short remarks by saying that I am in no way trying to excuse what has happened. I am only trying to explain briefly why it happened. In my own opinion, the over-riding faults were twofold. First, having had some experience of boards of directors, I do not think any of them are of any use at all unless they have a competent managing director. One can provide the most magnificent board, but unless there is a good chap running the show, the board cannot do anything about it. I have never yet met a board who knew anything short of what the managing director told them.
I am not casting any aspersions on the managing director who took office. Nobody more appropriate could be found at the time, and it is always difficult on these short-term jobs to get hold of good men. The gentleman in question took the job and did his best, and the fact that he was not totally suited for it was not his fault, but just sheer hard fact. In my own opinion, whatever the necessary extra cost turns out to be in the light of additional buildings or more substantial buildings and the like, I am quite certain that the extra cost that might be attributed to the mishandling of labour, weather conditions and the like, would have been very materially reduced had a contractor of substance been in charge of the whole show. The amount in the tender was only of the order of £160,000; the rest was going to be by sub-contractors, and so on, but the persons responsible did not think fit, in their wisdom, to employ one of the bigger contractors.
Whatever the past may have been, the future prospect is bright. I do not mind in the least what the gloomy pessimists may have said in the past. This, without doubt, is the biggest success in the history of public entertainment in this country. I hope it will be so recognised, and that, given the good will of all, we may find a permanent way of offering to Londoners a possibility of enjoyment of which they have had far too little in the past, and for which, I am sure, they will always have a need in the future.

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Duncan Sandys: I am sure that we can all share with the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Privy Seal the satisfaction that the fun fair and Pleasure Gardens in Battersea Park are undoubtedly going to give a great deal of enjoyment to many people in London; but that is not really the issue we are debating this afternoon. I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman, following the pattern of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Defence, devoted a good deal of his time to matters which were not strictly pertinent to the question under discussion. He also avoided quite a number of issues to which, I think, this House has a right to an answer before being asked to vote further money for this purpose.
This Bill arises from the simple fact that the project in Battersea Park is going to cost about three times the amount quoted to this House when the original Bill was introduced, and I shall have something more to say about that a little later. Let me say straight away that, of course, no blame whatever attaches to the Lord Privy Seal in this matter. He told us a few minutes ago that there had been changes in the higher management of the company which had led to improvements.
I think we are all very pleased that there has been a change in the higher management of the Festival on the Government side as well, and I think I may say that we feel there have already been salutary results following the replacement of the Foreign Secretary by the Lord Privy Seal on this job. The right hon. Gentleman blushes—

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Stokes indicated dissent.

Mr. Sandys: Anyway, he is blushing now. We recognise that since his appointment, the right hon. Gentleman has done everything that is humanly possible to clear up the Augean stable which he inherited from his predecessor. We are also indebted to him for the frankness with which he has treated the House, a frankness to which we were not altogether accustomed on this particular question. Perhaps it is easier to be frank about one's predecessor's errors than about one's own. The right hon. Gentleman has done his best today to make such excuses as could be made for his right hon. Friend's earlier

administration. I think he must have felt a little like a barrister who was briefed to defend a company director whose business had gone off the rails and whose only defence was to plead that he had been so neglectful of his duties that he did not know what was going on.
The Government appear before us today not exactly in a white sheet but in a White Paper. It would be certainly superfluous for me to try to adduce any new facts or criticisms that are not already contained in the very clear and objective report which results from the inquiry instituted by the Government themselves. All I need do is make a few observations upon the most serious aspects of this case and try to show where the responsibility lies.
One of the first things that strikes one in reading this report is the absence of any serious criticism of the contractors. Considering the difficulty and confused conditions under which they had to work and to which the right hon. Gentleman himself referred, that really reflects great credit on this firm, more particularly since it is not one of the very large building firms in this country.
I must be forgiven for criticising the then Lord President of the Council, the present Foreign Secretary, when he is not here, but I assume he must know he would not get nothing but bouquets during this debate. He attributed the increase in expenditure to three causes, in a reply which he gave to this House on 19th March. These were the bad weather, labour troubles and a tight timetable. On the question of the tight timetable, let me say—and I think the Lord Privy Seal has borne me out by his remarks today—it never need have been tight. The reason for its being tight was that the Government were exceedingly slow in making up their minds and even slower in introducing the necessary legislation.
The decision to hold the Festival of Britain as a whole was taken in 1947 and the Foreign Secretary has told us specifically that from the very beginning it was always envisaged there would be an amusement park. This was envisaged from 1947 and yet it took two years before the Government introduced the necessary legislation to enable the job to begin.

Mr. Stokes: That is not quite right. If I gave the right hon. Gentleman that impression, I was wrong. The Festival Council were appointed in 1948 and it was not necessary to have a Bill to form Festival Gardens, Limited. Had it been thought advisable the fun fair could have been proceeded with under the Festival Office. It was a mere difference of thought. What happened was that the fun fair got left to the end. There were bigger projects involved. If blame is to be laid, it was not my right hon. Friend's fault; it was the fault of the Festival Office for not getting on with the job quicker; but I do not wish to lay that charge at their door. It was their responsibility.

Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman said a late start was at the root of the trouble. He says the responsibility was not that of the Foreign Secretary, the then Lord President. He says it was the responsibility of the Festival Office. As I understand it, that office is part of the Department of the Lord President and I cannot believe that the Foreign Secretary, if he were here, would wish to shelter behind the Civil Service in his own Department.

Mr. Stokes: It is an all-party Council on which Members of the Front Bench opposite are represented.

Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman is not correct. The Festival Office to which he referred is a Civil Service department, part of the department of the Lord President. It is quite a different thing from the Council of the Festival.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Stokes indicated assent.

Mr. Sandys: The right hon. Gentleman agrees that is correct. It is perfectly clear that if the start had been made even six month or nine months earlier, the company would have had a much better prospect of getting itself organised and drawing-up its plans so that the job could start in an orderly fashion. As it was, the contractor was obliged to go onto the site and start work with nothing more than preliminary layouts. The plans were fed out to him piecemeal over a long period of months and, as the report says, some of the final plans of the buildings only reached him quite recently.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, that is undoubtedly one of the root causes of all the trouble, and from that followed

many other troubles and many very expensive remedies. As for the weather, blamed by the then Lord President of the Council and blamed also, though perhaps a little more mildly, by the Lord Privy Seal today, it is I think true that whenever the Government are hard up for an excuse for something that has gone wrong they always blame the weather.

Mr. Shurmer: That is ridiculous.

Mr. Sandys: The hon. Member says it is ridiculous, but does he not remember that when we had a fuel crisis, we were told—

Mr. Shurmer: The right hon. Gentleman is talking about something else now.

Mr. Sandys: We were told that the fuel crisis was due to the exceptionally cold winter. When we had a cement shortage last year the Lord Privy Seal, as the then Minister of Works, said it was due in large measure to an exceptionally warm winter.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Stokes indicated dissent.

Mr. Sandys: Certainly he did. Now we are told that the over-spending in Battersea Park was due to the exceptional amount of rain.

Mr. McAllister: The right hon. Gentleman said the report of the accountants was an objective report and I think that is fair comment. On page 2 of that report he will find that in paragraph (g) of the list of reasons given by the accountants—who were very experienced—they said one of the main reasons was the exceptionally heavy rainfall during the winter of 1950–51.

Mr. Sandys: If the hon. Member had not interrupted me I was about to say that, of course, the rainfall was exceptionally heavy last winter. But it is no good the Government planning on the basis of statistical averages. An average is merely a half-way mark between fluctuating variations in both directions. Like the average family which consists of 4.2 persons, the average winter is something which just does not exist except in the minds of the gentlemen in Whitehall.
In any case—and this is my reply to the hon. Gentleman—this argument about the weather is not a valid reason at all, because—and the Report bears me out—most of this work never ought to have been done in the winter at all. If the


job had been started in time, all the heavy site work, and in particular the roads, would have been completed during the normal building season. As it was, the summer was frittered away arguing about access to different parts of the site and waiting for plans. As a result, out of a contract of over half a million pounds only some £80,000 worth of work was completed by the autumn. All the rest was left over to be done during the winter.
As for the labour troubles, I do not believe that they would have been nearly as serious if the job had been started earlier. With a fixed opening date and with the whole work far behind schedule, it made it all too easy for the subversive elements, to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, to exploit the situation and to adopt tactics which could have been resisted if there had been more time in hand.
A little while ago I asked the right hon. Gentleman at Question time whether the Government accepted responsibility for the actions of the company. He said that I had better wait for the Report and for the debate on it. I had hoped that he would enlighten us on this point; I hope that whoever is to reply will deal specifically with this question. It would be altogether unfair for the Government to try in any way—and I did just notice a suspicion of it in one or two of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman today —to shelter behind Festival Gardens, Limited, as though it were an ordinary commercial firm over which they had no control.
This company was formed by the Government to carry out a Government plan. The Government and the L.C.C. hold all the shares. They put up all the money. When the money was overspent, the Government advanced more money out of the Civil Contingencies Fund. The Government drew up the articles of association. The Government nominated the directors. The company is linked directly with the Government through the appointment of civil servants from the Lord President's Department on to, the board of directors. In fact, it is quite clearly a puppet organisation in which the Government hold all the strings. Therefore, I hope that, in fairness to all concerned, the Minister who replies will make it quite clear that the Government accept responsibility for the actions of this company which has been

created by them and which in every sense they control.
It is clear from the report that one of the sources of weakness throughout has been the structure and composition of the board and the management of the company. The board of directors contains men of great talent in certain fields, but I think any unbiased person must feel that it is a thoroughly unbalanced team and one utterly unsuited for the job in hand. The original chairman was a retired civil servant of distinction who is now connected with the cinematograph industry. The other directors include two permanent civil servants from the Lord President's Department, three Socialist politicians, a journalist, a former advertising agent and four personalities from the entertainment and theatrical world.
Although there were as many as 14 directors on this board, there was not one single person on the board who had any knowledge or qualifications in the field of building or civil engineering upon which the greater part of the company's money was going to be spent. The Government have subsequently very belatedly recognised this mistake by the appointment of General King, the former Engineer-in-Chief of the War Office, to replace Sir Henry French as the chairman, but that did not happen until April of this year when, of course, all the damage had been done.
I think the House will agree with the opinion expressed in the report by Mr. Butler, the accountant, on page 1 in which he says:
 It appears to me…that the conception and organisation of the Board itself was unsatisfactory‥‥The organisation of such a company would normally include a director responsible for construction, a director responsible for operation, a director responsible for finance, a managing director to co-ordinate their work, and such part-time directors as may be desirable for particular purposes.
Not only did this company have no full-time directors at all with special responsibilities, but for seven whole months it never had a managing director at all. Even the secretary of the company during the whole of that period was employed only part-time. It is a fantastic story. It was not until June, 1950, that a managing director was eventually appointed, but by that time all the main contracts had already been placed and all the most important decisions of policy had been taken.
Even so, even at that late date, I believe the situation might have been partially retrieved if a managing director had been appointed who possessed at any rate some of the qualifications which were required for the job. However, the board took the extraordinary decision of appointing to this important, responsible executive position a man who possessed virtually no experience in the particular fields in which the company would mainly operate.
It appointed Mr. Leonard Crainford, of the Festival Office, to be managing director. Mr. Crainford for the whole of his life had been in the theatre world. He had held important positions as producer and manager in a number of theatres in different parts of the country. He had organised the play tours of the C. E. M. A. during the war. He was a director of numerous dramatic societies. He was a lecturer and adjudicator for the British Drama League. He is undoubtedly a leading personality in the sphere of the theatre and drama, but I submit that those are hardly the qualifications and experience required for a managing director whose main job was going to be to supervise large engineering and building contracts.

Mr. Porter: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the board of this company ought to have known all about building before starting the functions of the company?

Mr. Sandys: I am suggesting that experience of the theatre, circus, journalism and advertising, which are all represented on the board, were not perhaps the most important qualifications needed for this particular job.

Mr. Porter: The job of the board was to run the Festival Gardens.

Mr. Sandys: A theatrical producer, in my opinion, does not seem to be the best person to run this particular type of organisation.

Mr. Popplewell (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): What about Lord Aberconway?

Mr. Sandys: He resigned almost at once. He was brought in in his capacity as President of the Royal Horticultural Society.
Commenting on this appointment of the managing director, the board themselves admit on page 21 of the report that they were not satisfied with the choice which had been made. They say:
We were…unable to find a candidate whose qualifications and experience measured up to the standards we felt to be desirable.
That is a deplorable statement. I really cannot believe that with all the interest centred on the Festival of Britain, with the full backing of the Government, that it was impossible to find in the whole of Great Britain a man with suitable qualifications who was willing to accept this important and interesting position. I ask the Minister specifically to tell us, when he replies, whether the Government were consulted about this appointment of Mr. Crainford as managing director, and whether they approved; and, if not, whether it was approved by their two representatives on the board.
There are one or two other matters about which I should like to have an explanation. The first concerns the original estimate. The original estimate made by the Government, before the company was formed and announced to this House when the Bill authorising the loan was brought before the House of Commons. was a total estimated expenditure of £800,000. During the right hon. Gentleman's speech there was a query about a figure of £770,000, and he said that that was not really the total expenditure. The figure given by the then Lord President of the Council was £800,000, and I therefore hope that that is a correct figure. We have had certain figures that did not turn out to be correct. Was it the difference between £770,000 and £800,000 which the right hon. Gentleman had in mind?

Mr. Stokes: I tried to explain that the £770,000 was liquid capital necessary to finance the scheme. The total constructional cost was estimated at £800,000.

Mr. Sandys: The figure of £800,000 is correct, then. I just wanted to have that confirmed. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to tell us the basis for that estimate of £800,000. How were those figures calculated? Will he also tell us how it was that only four month after the Bill had been passed, only four months after the then Lord President had given the House the figure of £800,000, the estimate of expenditure had climbed up from


£800,000 to £1,168,000—in other words, nearly 50 per cent. more than the figure given to this House—before even the contract had been placed, before a single sod had been cut? That requires some explanation, and I hope that we shall have it.
It seems to me that there are only two possible explanations. It is no good telling us that it was because of rising prices. Even under a Socialist administration prices do not rise by 50 per cent. in four months. There are only two possible explanations. One is that the original estimate was completely at fault, and the other is that the scheme was materially enlarged. I submit that in either case it was the duty of the then Lord President to tell the House that the basis upon which it had voted this money had been completely and radically changed. He could have done it before the contract was placed, before the money was spent, and I think that it was his duty and obligation to inform the House on that point. I therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman lo tell us why we were not told.
Of course, it may be that the Government just did not know. It may be that they did not bother to keep themselves sufficiently in touch with the company to know what was going on. One cannot help getting the impression from reading these papers that, having set up an unworkable organisation, having appointed unsuitable men to run it, having devised a financial plan which had no basis of reality, and having got Parliament to vote the money, the Government then washed their hands of the whole business and let everything rip. That is the impression that one gets.
In the debate in November, 1949, the then Lord President said:
If a Minister of the Crown tries to handle every detail in these matters, he will only get himself into a mess."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 23rd November, 1949; Vol. 470, c. 452.]
The reason is, not that they interfered too much in detail but that they failed to exercise any control or supervision over the expenditure of the money voted by Parliament. It seems that the then Lord President—"Lord Festival" as he liked to be called—was far too busy bathing in the sunlight of his own publicity, and in having himself photographed embracing Festival "Queens," so that he had

no time to keep his eye on the less glamorous figures of public expenditure.
Even so the right hon. Gentleman must have known very well for a long time that things were going wrong. For example, on page 13 of the report it is made perfectly clear that in November last a revised estimate was sent to the Lord President. This revised estimate of expenditure provided for a figure of expenditure of £1,600,000—in other words, exactly double the figure which had been quoted to the House by the Lord President when the Bill was passed. This same estimate showed an expected deficit of no less than £600,000, as compared with the figure of £100,000 quoted to the House by the Lord President.
Again, I say that represented a fundamental change in the situation, and I submit that it was the duty of the Lord President to inform the House as soon as he received that information. Instead he kept that information to himself until 6th March of this year, when my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn), happened to ask a Question on this subject. The Lord Privy Seal said in his speech that the Government had nothing to conceal. I ask him to tell us, when winding up, why it was that this information, this November estimate, was concealed from the House for so many months. Will he tell us that?
There is another matter about which I should like information in connection with this Question on 6th March. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to tell us how it came about that the then Lord President of the Council gave the House such a totally inaccurate reply. In the reply he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon he said:
on the best figures with which the Board have been able to provide me I understand that the total expenditure is likely to be about £1,625,000.
I ask the House to note that he said:
 on the best figures with which the Board have been able to provide me.
He then went on to say:
 the revised revenue estimate now given to me"—
"now given to me"—
by the company is 1.1,053,000."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th March, 1951; Vol. 485, c. 27.]
Surely the impression that must have been given to the House by that statement was that the right hon. Gentleman


had consulted the board and obtained from them the latest figure, which he then incorporated in his reply and communicated to the House. That was the impression—the natural impression—formed by what he said; but it is now clear from the report that the figures he gave in his reply were, in fact, the old ones of the November estimate. On 6th March he was giving figures which had been sent to him in November. The result was, as we know, that a fortnight later the then Lord President had to come to the House to explain that he had made a mistake and that the deficit, instead of being £500,000, as he had said on 6th March, was in fact going to be in the neighbourhood of £1,500,000.
The figures in themselves are extremely disturbing, but I believe that the most disturbing feature of that incident, of the mistake on 6th March and the correction on 19th March, is that it shows that the then Lord President of the Council was completely and totally out of touch with the company and with what was going on, and that in March he apparently did not appreciate that there had been a radical deterioration in the whole situation since the previous November. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us a full explanation of that point which, I know, has disturbed many hon. Members.
The Bill today results from a fantastic increase in expenditure over the estimates originally given to Parliament. The original cost, as I have already said, was to be £800,000, with a possible loss of £100,000. Now, instead of £800,000, the total expenditure is going to be £2,500,000 and the estimated loss may be anything up to £1,500,000. I submit to the House that this is not just an increase. This proposition which is now being put to us is a totally different proposition from the one which was approved by Parliament in 1949.
I go further. I say that if these figures had been known in November, 1949, if it had been known in November, 1949, that the probable loss was going to be, not £100,000 but £1,500,000, not even This Government would have had the face to present that proposition to Parliament, and that if they had there would have been no doubt that the Measure, instead of being unanimously adopted, would have been a hotly contested

Measure in the House, and that it would have been a subject of controversy throughout the whole country.
Without Parliament being consulted, without Parliament being informed, we are now told that the money has already been spent—or, at any rate, that commitments have been entered into which amount to the same thing. In order to keep this company out of the bankruptcy court we are now asked to note a further loan—if we can describe as a loan money which, we are told in advance, we shall probably not get back. There can, of course, be no question of dishonouring commercial debts which have been entered into by this company which is sponsored and controlled by the Government. In one way or another the money has got to be found; but the fact that it has to be found, and that it has to be found in these humiliating circumstances, is a very grave reflection on the Government, on the Ministers concerned. and in particular on the Foreign Secretary.
The Festival of Britain, 1951, was inaugurated to commemorate the Great Exhibition of 1851. There is one important difference between the two Exhibitions. The Exhibition of 1851 was planned by private enterprise to produce a profit, and the profit exceeded all expectations. The Exhibition of 1951—the Festival—was planned by the Government to produce a loss, and the loss is exceeding all expectations. The story of the Festival Gardens is just another chapter in the book of Socialist muddle. It is just another example of the Government's inability to plan to organise anything efficiently. It is just another example of their total failure to protect the public purse.

4.56 p.m.

Mr. McAllister: The House seemed to follow with rapt attention the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), although I think we all thought that it was rather a laborious and tedious study, not going very deeply into the matters involved. At any rate, it was a speech characteristic of the party opposite in relation to the Festival of Britain since the Festival was thought of—a veneer of co-operation veiling absolute detestation of the whole scheme because it was not their scheme and because the right


hon. Gentleman's father-in-law was not at 10, Downing Street.

Mr. Shurmer: That is good.

Mr. McAllister: It was a little unfortunate for the Opposition that they chose to put up the right hon. Gentleman to open for them in this debate, because his whole case today has been that the Government started off to do something which is costing a lot more money than the Government expected. That is characteristic, he says, of a Socialist Government. But, at any rate, the Government have produced something. They have produced the Festival Pleasure Gardens. I remember, during the war, when the right hon. Gentleman was at the Ministry of Works, where I spent a little time myself, in a much humbler capacity, the pipe dream that oozed from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman and was blared over the radio—and not only to the listening public here but to the listening public in America—about the Portal house.

Mr. Mellish: The great planner.

Mr. H. Macmillan: The Coalition Government.

Mr. McAllister: The Portal house was produced by the Coalition Government, certainly, but, very fortunately, no right hon. Gentleman on this side of the House and of this Government had any connection with it. We had the late Lord Portal; we had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham; we had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), who was then Prime Minister; but no Labour Minister was in any way attached to the Portal house.

Mr. Macmillan: Who was the Parliamentary Secretary?

Mr. McAllister: The Parliamentary Secretary was, I think, my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Macmillan: Hear, hear.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. William Whiteley): No.

Hon. Members: Mr. George Hicks.

Mr. McAllister: Yes—a former Member of this House. Anyhow, it is a new

doctrine about Government responsibility to suggest that a Parliamentary Secretary takes full responsibility for what his chief does.
That was the gravamen of the right hon. Gentleman's charge today—that the Government had envisaged an expenditure of money on the Festival Gardens and that that expenditure, for various reasons—and he thinks the Government are to blame in this regard—has enormously increased. He rejects the three reasons given to us by the then Lord President of the Council for the increased cost. Yet he claims that the report of the accountants is an objective report—and I think it is an objective report—which gives these three reasons and several others as being the reasons for the additional cost.
One thing was interesting in the interchange between the right hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal, and that was their different conceptions of the responsibilities of company directors and boards of management. When my right hon. Friend, who has much more experience in these matters than I have. said that it was no use putting responsibilities on managing directors, it reminded me of that handbook of industrial management, "How to run a bassoon factory," in which the author starts off with the definition of the managing director as the director who actually knows where the works are situated.

Mr. Stokes: I said that it was no use relying on boards of directors and that one must rely on managing directors.

Mr. McAllister: I think that is precisely the point my right hon. Friend was making, and in "How to run a bassoon factory" the managing director is the director who actually knows where the works are situated.
I think that the board that was appointed is a board which would command respect from any reasonable body of people and from this House as a whole. Sir Henry French was not only one of the most distinguished civil servants that this country has ever had, but he was the man who built up the Ministry of Food; he was the man who gave Lord Woolton all the reputation that Lord Woolton has today for that project—a man of great capacity for detail and for organisation over a very wide field. One would have


thought that with Sir Henry French in the chair of any company that was a prima facie case for guaranteeing that the company would be well-managed. But if an attempt were made to place the whole blame on the managing director, then I think that the House would be unkind and unreasonable. The right hon. Gentleman detailed some of the features of the career of Mr. Leonard Crainford, his work in the theatre and his work as a producer, but he did not mention his very fine work as the director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Memorial Theatre.
I think that the first point to observe is that Mr. Leonard Crainford did not want to be appointed managing director of Festival Gardens, Ltd. He had been acting as Secretary of the Festival as a whole. His responsibility as Secretary of the Festival was to stimulate Festival activity in every town and village throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain. The things that are happening all over Great Britain today under Festival auspices are proof that Mr. Leonard Crainford did an extremely good job as Secretary of the Festival. The board was appointed in December and Mr. Leonard Crainford was not appointed managing director until June; therefore, I think that it is quite clear that the responsibility devolved on the board of directors and not on Mr. Leonard Crainford.
There seems to be unanimity on one point in the debate, and that is that the Festival Gardens are a great success. They have added an amenity to London which London has long lacked. In the Second Reading debate on the original Festival Bill, I made the point that one of the features of the Festival ought to be a pleasure garden such as the Tivoli in Copenhagen. One cannot create pleasure gardens of that kind without bringing into the initial stage men of great imagination and artistic sensibility, who have not only the knowledge of what the public want but a knowledge of how to give the public something even better than they want.
I think that in the actual result of the Pleasure Gardens, we must give the credit to Mr. James Gardner and the team of designers who work with him for the magnificent results they have produced. To go to the Pleasure Gardens when dark- ness is falling and to see the lights come on and the absolutely fabulous beauty that comes over Battersea Park at that

moment is one of the thrilling experiences of our time, and, fortunately, hundreds and thousands of people are realising that and tracking to the Gardens in a way that the most optimistic sponsors of the Gardens never imagined would be the case. I cannot imagine that result was achieved without the managing director providing a stimulus here, there and everywhere.
My right hon. Friend is the new Chairman of the board of directors. I have no doubt that he deserves praise. I have no doubt that the reconstituted board have managed to do great things in the short time they have been appointed, but, nevertheless, we have to keep a sense of perspective in this matter, and it is to the original board and to the original managing director that must go the real credit for the great success of the Gardens as they are today.
We must keep two things quite separate. One is that the Pleasure Gardens is an enterprise catering for the public and for the delight of Londoners and thousands of visitors from all over the country and from overseas; and the other is the actual financial question itself. These are two separate questions. It is really too early to talk about a financial loss. It may very well prove that the Festival Gardens do not produce a loss to the British taxpayer, but are, in the end, not a great but a slight revenue-making asset.
When the Gardens were envisaged and the work started, all sorts of difficulties which later arose were not anticipated. No one anticipated the continuing deluge of rain which lasted from the early part of last autumn until the Gardens were almost due to be opened. The right hon. Gentleman said, "We always blame the weather." He was most unfair. If he looks at the report he will see a detailed case giving the actual rainfall at Battersea contrasted with 1935. In only one month was the rainfall at Battersea less than the average for the 1935 year average. In the last month, it was two inches or 1.5 inches above the average for the time of the year. That is a most serious matter. If the right hon. Gentleman went to Battersea, as I did, while the work was in progress and saw the sea of mud everywhere, the miracle was not that the Gardens were a few weeks late but that they were ready so quickly.
I think that the poor quality of some of the labour was a very serious matter. It is one of the misfortunes of full employment that when we have all our industries geared to capacity and all our labour utilised, and we embark on an extra special enterprise of this kind, we have to take the labour that is available, and sometimes it is not the best labour. I can recall going to Battersea one Saturday morning. There were some 2,000 men there, but the number of men who were actually working was very small indeed. I think it was a reflection on some of the men and on the Communists who had unquestionably been given their marching orders with regard to Battersea and were deliberately trying to bring further disrepute upon the Government and upon this country by the normal tactics of the Communist Party.
These are things over which no one has very much control, but the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), who is in the building industry, knows that there is nothing that can add so quickly and so overwhelmingly to the cost of any work in progress as additional overtime costs—time-and-a-half, double time and special bonus payment for special results. That can add to the costs enormously, and I have not the slightest doubt that was one of the main factors in the rising costs.
There was some talk of long delays, and, of course, long delays occur. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham said that they were unnecessary, and that there was no need for negotiations. Is that really so? Is it not a fact that the Company had to negotiate with the Loudon County Council, the Chelsea Borough Council, and the Battersea Borough Council, and that it took a very long time indeed to get the agreement of these three Councils before the work could begin at all? That was an important factor in the delays which occurred.
The accountants' report is very fair on the whole. It spotlights all the points of criticism, including the exceptionally low labour output, the exceptionally heavy rainfall, the changes in the basis of the contract and the lack of a suitable managing director. Let me emphasise again that Mr. Crainford would far rather have gone on in his original job than take over the responsibility for the Festi-

val Gardens. There was the general failure of the Board of Directors to specify a date. That, clearly was the failure, not of the Government, but of the board, because the right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. It is the continual and sustained charge of hon. Members opposite that Socialist Governments interfere too much with private enterprise and with the activities of boards of directors.

Mr. Sandys: The hon. Member does not suggest that this is private enterprise. The company was formed by the Government, everything was decided by the Government, and all the shares were held by the Government. Is that private enterprise?

Mr. McAllister: It is not private enterprise, but surely the right hon. Gentleman follows the argument—that hon. Members opposite are continually accusing this Labour Administration of what they decribe as bureaucratic influence. Here was a board appointed and a loan granted. Let us be fair about the loan which was granted. It was approved not only by the Government, but by the House as a whole, and it was left to the board to administer that loan and to get on with the job. It would have been intolerable if the then Lord President of the Council or any other Minister had interfered in the day to day or week to week conduct of the board of management.

Mr. Orbach: Is it not a fact that all the work at the Festival Gardens was, in fact, done by private contractors working under the board of directors?

Mr. McAllister: That, of course, is entirely true, but I would agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham that the contractors are not at fault in this matter. There is no criticism of them in this report, and I myself would have hesitated before accepting a tender of a company which was not one of the great companies in the constructional and engineering field.

Mr. H. Macmillan: I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman. Do I understand him now to be in favour of employing one of the monopolists?

Mr. McAllister: The contract went out to tender, and the company received a number of replies. They accepted the


lowest tender, which I do not think is always the wise thing to do, but it is the habit in public administration.
The lowest tender was that of a company which is not among the first dozen or even 20 leading building firms in this country. I myself would have thought that for a job of this magnitude the company would have been better—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that even one of the biggest building companies in this country is a monopoly, or is he suggesting that there is nothing in the nature of a building ring?
I do not want to pursue this very much, but if one looks at the three tenders quoted in the report on page 27, it will be seen that one is for £535,000, another is for £525,000 and the third is for £524,000. I would be the last person in the world to suggest that there is any collusion in the matter, but the coincidence in the size of the figures is quite remarkable, as the right hon. Gentleman will agree.
I have spoken much too long, but I think I have made out a better case than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham. I hope when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) winds up for the Opposition he will be more generous in his appreciation of the work which has been done, of the results that have been achieved, and of the great addition to the amenity of London and Great Britain which Festival Gardens has brought to us.

5.15 p.m.

Sir Ralph Glyn: I am sure the House will be in sympathy with the Lord Privy Seal in having to make the excuses here for so many faults for which he has not the least responsibility. We all have some knowledge of him personally, and some of us directly in his business capacity. I am quite sure that of all the jobs he has ever done he must have hated today's job more than any other.. It is not a matter so much of personality, but trying to deal with the situation as we find it today and to see how the taxpayer is to be saved from very grievous financial loss.
The right hon. Gentleman quoted a reply that I received to a Question I put to the then Lord President of the Council, but he did not quote a previous Question which led me to put down the second.

I should like to draw the attention of the House to the one I put to the then Lord President of the Council as long ago as 27th July, 1950. It will be remembered that the contractor got on to the site only on 1st April, 1950. As I had rather an interest in this matter, I happened to go down to Battersea and it was quite obvious to me then that, starting as we were without any plans or drawings, the possibility of the thing at that time being ready was extremely slight. Therefore, I asked the then Lord President of the Council whether, under the financial circumstances, he would consider postponing any further expenditure on the Festival of Britain scheme. I quite expected the answer he gave, which was:
I am not disposed to consider any such postponement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1950; Vol. 478, c. 97.]
The reason I quote that is that it ought to be noted that there was an opportunity as long ago as July, 1950, to review the financial position and to consider what chances there were of carrying the scheme through. The last thing anybody who believed in the Festival of Britain wanted was that it should be a flop. Everyone interested in the project wanted it to be a success. There is no doubt at all that for one reason or another there was this most unfortunate delay, which was partly due to the misconceptions as to what was going to happen.
The first mistake that was made was in thinking that the limited site on the South Bank could possibly accommodate what is now wanted to be put in Battersea Park. The site on the South Bank is quite close to this House, and somebody might have measured it up and presented the details simultaneously with the plan being presented to Parliament. All that was done was to set aside an area for the location of the Festival Gardens. That led to long negotiations with the London County Council.
One matter which the right hon. Gentleman has not dealt with is that the London County Council wanted certain buildings erected in permanent form and one other building in semi-permanent form. They put some ties on it as to the date by which the site had to be surrendered back to the care of the L. C. C., the responsible authority for Battersea Park. The London County Council had no business, strictly speaking, to give a


grant for a Festival Gardens or fun fair which seeks to exclude the public from access for more than a certain time.
In my view, once the British public go to Festival Gardens they will want them to be permanent. I believe in them, because I think we have need of every amenity possible to cheer the people up. People are being asked to work very long hours on re-armament and to strive their utmost in the export drive. I cannot see what is wrong with providing people with a public place where they can go and enjoy themselves. We have debated all this before, but I hope that hon. Members will not condemn Festival Gardens unseen and unheard. I say "unheard" especially to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelsea (Commander Noble).
At the beginning of Festival Gardens one of the great difficulties was the extraordinary idea that the noise made by the Battersea amusement park would keep Cheyne Walk and Chelsea awake at night. I have gone around on the North Bank trying to hear some noise emanating from the Battersea fun fair.

Commander Noble: I wonder whether my hon. Friend was there when the fireworks went off?

Sir R. Glyn: I understand that so strong were the representations made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelsea that the public are only to have fireworks on two days a week instead of four. That will decrease the number of fireworks but may not increase the sleep of my hon. and gallant Friend's constituents and, on the whole, I think they would rather have had the fireworks. It is a matter which the weather will decide rather than a Member of Parliament. After all, damp fireworks are not much good.
We cannot overlook the fact that there was a most gross muddle, which Parliament cannot allow to pass. It was a muddle which was quite inexcusable. I want to say what I believe went wrong basically with this plan, for which Parliament is wholly responsible. When the Act was passed it was in such a form that the Estimates Committee were quite unable to deal with the matter during the progress of the work. The Public Accounts Committee can deal with a

matter after the work has been done. They do most valuable work in that way. They carry out a kind of post mortem examination. The money has been spent, and the corpse is there. If the Estimates Committee can examine a plan as it is going forward it can keep Parliament informed from time to time how the money is being spent.
There is a habit of including in Bills powers for people who are not responsible to Parliament directly to have the spending of the taxpayers' money without any Parliamentary control. It is a habit which is increasing, although it is directly against the old tradition that this House is responsible for expenditure made on behalf of the taxpayer. That is the reason why the House of Commons, in its good sense, has set up those Select Committees for the very purpose of acting as a check upon the expenditure of public funds, no matter what the cost may be. That was the first mistake, that this expenditure was not put down upon the ordinary Estimates so that they could have been checked and kept in hand.
The other point is the misuse of the word "loan," which is creeping in far too much. This is not a loan; as it stands it will be a loss to the taxpayer. Unless we keep Festival Gardens open for two or three years, they will be a dead loss. We can make them into a profit and recoup the taxpayers' money, as well as give the people of London and the country a wonderful example of what can be done by modern art. Mr. Piper has done a very fine job. The architecture generally is something light and unusual, and well worthy of our time. We can have all these things, or the taxpayers can lose money; but let us not call it "a loan" if we have the restricted period. It is not a loan. It is going to be extracted from the taxpayers, who will face a loss of not less than £21 million, a dead loss, unless this exhibition is allowed to go on so long as to pay its capital cost and repay its operating costs.

Mr. Stokes: Does the hon. Gentleman really mean a £2½ million loss? Is he not ignoring revenue of £1½ million?

Sir R. Glyn: I know about that, but I call it a loss of £2½ million because I have every reason to believe that there will be charges in connection with London Passenger Transport and other matters to


be borne by the taxpayer which ought properly to be among the costs of the exhibition. I only hope that I shall be proved wrong and that the loss will not be £2½million. It certainly will not be so much if we keep Festival Gardens open long enough to make them pay, as well as to pay for some of the money lost on the South Bank. Festival Gardens will be a real money spinner.
There is another aspect of the matter where there ought to be severe condemnation of the methods adopted. I am sorry to say that I have had some experience of the lack of security in Government establishments, certainly in my constituency. I happened to find out that one well-known Communist agitator had, happily, left North Berkshire and had gone to Battersea Park. I wanted to find out why he had gone there, and I did not have to wait very long. He had not been there more than a fortnight before he was able, because of his previous links with the Amalgamated Engineering Union, to start trouble at once.
I want to support what has been said, that undoubtedly there were a number of people there who did very good work, but the whole House knows the tragedy under which we are suffering today. There is a very small minority of determined people who can undo the discipline of any decent trade union.

Mr. Pannell: The hon. Member has referred to a well known Communist whom he links with the Amalgamated Engineering Union. I take it that he is not making an allegation against the union itself?

Sir R. Glyn: Certainly not. I am certainly not against the union, but I say that the properly elected representatives in some of these unions are not getting the support they should get from the bulk of the membership. They allow a very small minority of agitators to do a great deal of harm which brings contempt upon the union as a whole.

Mr. Pannell: I did not think the hon. Gentleman would do so. I am one of the Parliamentary representatives of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. I should like the hon. Gentleman to know that the union is not Communist-controlled, because of a long process of hard work and disenchantment that was carried out. They are solidly behind the Labour Government today.

Sir R. Glyn: I am delighted to hear it. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I fully appreciate all that he and his colleagues have done to eliminate the Communist influence.
All I can say is that one of the results of full employment is that we get some very curious people applying for work. I am not convinced that there was a sufficient sieve to ensure who was employed at Battersea Park, otherwise these people would never have got in. That was due to bad management and bad labour supervision, and it was against the interests of the men themselves. I spent several days there in appalling weather conditions. Luckily they lent us gumboots to walk about with, but one was well over one's ankles. Some of those men were working under the most deplorable conditions.
In a situation like that, it does not take many firebrands to make a thing a failure, and the Communists were determined to make this scheme a failure. They knew exactly what they had to do. They claimed for "dirty work" time: they put every obstacle in the way. The right hon. Gentleman put Lieut.-General King in as soon as he could, and he is a most efficient manager. If there had been an efficient manager earlier who understood building, and if there had been proper support from the security side, I think that the work would have turned out differently.
At any rate, we can learn a lesson from all this. It is that it ought never to be said again, as it was said to me by the Foreign Secretary in this House, that one must not criticise Battersea Gardens because that is private enterprise. I immediately told him that I did not call it private enterprise, nor was it. This was a company nominated by the Government. It was not a limited company, and there was no sense of responsibility by the board of directors to the taxpayer, as there would have been if the directors had been responsible to shareholders. That is the difference.
I am perfectly happy about the future now that the matter is in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Privy Seal. I only hope that all hon. Members will share my satisfaction that he is now in charge. If they share that satisfaction, let the House decide that the taxpayer


shall not lose money unnecessarily, but that the working people of the country shall have a place where they can go to enjoy themselves.

5.32 p.m.

Mr. Henry Brooke: The House has had the benefit of the views of the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. McAllister) and the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn), and now I want to speak as a Londoner. The hon. Member for Rutherglen made a speech which may give satisfaction in his constituency, but I assure him that it will not be much enjoyed by Londoners when they read it tomorrow. He said that, at any rate, the Government have produced something. Any of us can produce great results if we can have virtually unlimited amounts of public money to play with.
What we have to do this afternoon is to give our attention to a lamentable large-scale failure to control the spending of public money. I cannot help seeing this problem against the background of the other public work which has been going on in London in these last two or three years. The London County Council has received repeated communications from Government Departments that its plans for this, or that, or the other new building must be drastically cut or indeed eliminated, because the Government had not got the resources available in men and materials to enable the work to go forward.
Hon. Members can see at Lansbury a fine new school built by the London County Council, but the London County Council is no longer allowed to build schools with all these amenities because the cost per head has now been cut by the Government. When plans for health centres are put up by the L. C. C., the Ministry of Health say, "No. We cannot sanction these." Traffic improvements are delayed. People who wish to get to the South Bank Exhibition and Battersea Park—good luck to them—are delayed in traffic jams, because the Government have said that no resources in men and materials can be expended in London at the moment on urgently needed road improvements. So on it goes over the whole field. Nursery schools are banned. For the schools meals service, no further building is allowed.
The hon. Member for Rutherglen put up a defence of what has happened in Battersea Park which appeared to me to be entirely based on the fact that the Festival Gardens were most enjoyable. Ought they not to be, when they have had over £2 million of public money spent on them? We surely should have learned by now that in these days of straitened economic circumstances we have to balance one need against another and decide what we want most.
Perhaps I can assist the House most by going back to my own experience of the early days of the planning of this scheme. I first heard about it at the end of 1948. I heard, as a member of the London County Council, that there was a possibility that something on the lines of the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen might be embarked upon in Battersea Park. I am one of those who want to see the amenities of London improved. I was never opposed to some plan of riverside gardens if a successful scheme could be worked out and—I stress this—if the resources were available without withdrawing men and materials from other quarters.
I heard nothing more of this suggestion until some five or six months later, at the end of May, 1949. What was happening during that period I do not know, and those who have prepared the White Paper do not seem to know either. I believe that it was on 1st June, 1949, that a conference was held at County Hall of representatives of the London County Council and the two borough councils intimately concerned. A plan was laid before the conference. It was what is now referred to as the "abortive plan"—the one for a five-year scheme. Some 37 acres of Battersea Park were to be withdrawn from public use for five years, and rather more than £1 million were to be spent. It was indicated that, over the five years, the whole of that expenditure might be recouped.
We inquired how the period of five years came about. It appeared to have been arrived at not on any intrinsic merit of a quinquennial period, but simply because it was thought that five years would be required in which to get the money back. That plan was most unfavourably received by all the local authority representatives, regardless of


party. There was unanimous criticism of those 37 acres of Battersea Park, including the riverside walk, being withdrawn from the enjoyment of the general public for a period of five years, for the sake of a scheme about which, frankly, very little could be told us in detail at that stage because the details had not yet been worked out.
Then came a sudden transformation. I want to stress the shortness of this next period of time. Twenty-four hours elapsed between that meeting and a subsequent meeting at which the then Lord President of the Council was present, and at which a new plan was put before us not for a five-year occupation but for a one-year occupation. We were told that it was believed that on the basis of a one-year occupation the previous cost, which had been estimated at something like £1,250,000, could be reduced by £500,000, and that the new cost figure which we should take into consideration was about £750,000.
That seemed to everybody to be a much more acceptable plan. Indeed, I think that general agreement was reached on that occasion by the local representatives present that, if something on those lines could be worked out, it was likely to receive support from the local authorities. Obviously, nobody could pledge his local authority without having had opportunities for wider consultation. I cannot help suspecting that inadequate thought had been given by the Government and the Festival authorities in those 24 hours to the practical possibility of knocking £500,000 off the expenditure, and in the light of after events I find it very difficult to accept that at that time, when we agreed to the £750,000 plan, anybody from the Government or the Festival could have produced a water-tight scheme which would give satisfaction and win approval and which, at the same time, would cost only £750,000.

Mr. Pannell: But presumably the hon. Gentleman and his friends from the local authorities accepted it.

Mr. Brooke: I do not follow the hon. Gentleman. The great difficulty with which all the local authority representatives were faced at that time was the paucity of knowledge, because nobody could sufficiently assure us what the new

gardens were expected to look like and what was to happen in them. It was a general and vague idea. We were fully convinced—especially those who work in the neighbourhood of County Hall—that there would be gross overcrowding in the South Bank Exhibition if no alternative attraction were created in London to try to draw the crowd away, and I think that may have influenced many of us.
From 2nd June, 1949, there was another lapse of some four months, and it was not until 25th October that any definite proposal on the matter of the Festival Gardens came before the London County Council. What work was done by the Government and the Festival authorities in that interval I do not know, but it strikes me that either I must be right in suspecting that on 2nd June plans were in a very sketchy and immature state or, alternatively, there must have been waste of time in the interval and the scheme should have been brought forward in specific form to the London County Council and to this House much earlier than October or November.
I need not dwell on the London County Council debate. The principal point of issue there was that the Lord President of the Council, as he then was, was pressing the London County Council to make a financial contribution. The majority of that council committed what I think was the great mistake of agreeing to the London ratepayers putting £40,000 into this pool, which has subsequently proved to be a bottomless one. We were told that Festival Gardens Ltd. was to be formed, and the London County Council were given the opportunity of suggesting three names of persons who might be appointed by the Government to the company. I refused to sit on the board, and I did that for two reasons—partly because I wholly disagreed with the spending of ratepayers' money on the Festival Gardens, and partly because I did not wish my name to appear on the prospectus of a company which, from the very outset, announced that it would make a loss.
At that time I was not a Member of Parliament. My responsibility was as a member of the London County Council to the ratepayers of London, and I am quite clear that I should have done wrong had I agreed to serve on the board. High opinion as no doubt I have of myself, I can hardly believe that had I served on


the board I could have altered the figure of £2,500,000 back to £750,000.

Mr. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman would probably have made it worse.

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman raises a hypothetical question which I do not feel disposed to answer.
As to the board itself, undoubtedly a number of able men served on it. I cannot acquit them of failure. Quite clearly, they did not exercise sufficiently close supervision over the spending of money. I do not know how it happened; I do not know how the mistakes at the board arose. It is quite true that most of the members were busy men, but they had accepted office—and an office which carried, with it what sometimes seems to some of us to be the heaviest responsibility of all, the control over other people's money. Yet they failed to control.
But the fundamental trouble lay elsewhere. The fundamental mistake was the mistake of the Government in setting up a board of that kind. This Government, who, in other fields, have so often attacked the part-time director, and expressed a strong preference for a board of full-time men, on this occasion adopted the completely part-time structure. I hope that one lesson we can learn from this is that the strongest board of directors to look after a business affair is, in general, one which is composed partly of full-time men giving their professional skill to the company and partly of part-time men, amateurs so far as that company's business is concerned but bringing with them wide and well-recognised ability and experience in other fields.
But ultimately, if we are to pin-point anything as the main cause of the loss of all this money, it was delay—allowing time to slip away when urgent decisions were not taken. In connection with the Festival of Britain this is but one example where money has had to be spent unnecessarily because the original decision to do that particular constructional work was left too late. When we see the finances of the South Bank, I have no doubt that that fact will again emerge. Hundreds of thousands of pounds could have been saved in connection with the Festival of Britain if the then Lord President of the Council had managed to get

decisions out of his Cabinet colleagues months and years earlier than he did. I have every sympathy with the directors when they say. on page 20 of the White Paper:
Had it been possible for us to be appointed a few months earlier, the work would have been greatly facilitated and many difficulties avoided.
There is only one further point. Some hon. Members this afternoon have rather lightly indicated that we can get out of the financial side of these troubles by keeping the Festival Gardens open indefinitely. Let us take any such decision in the light of informed and experienced public opinion on the matter, not simply because it is offered to us this afternoon as a way of getting some money back. Originally, when the slate was clean, the local authority representatives who were consulted said they did not like the idea of a long-term occupation of that part of Battersea Park.
It would be quite unfair to those elected representatives in London if this House were in any sense to try to over-rule them simply because a great deal more money has been spent than was intended. We have to keep the balance between public enjoyment of the Festival Gardens and the numerous other urgent needs which the open spaces of London can alone provide. I should be much more content about the riverside gardens being permanently open if I had not to go in the next few weeks to distribute prizes at various schools in Central London and to hear, as I shall on those occasions, that it is impossible for boys to get a game of cricket because there are no open spaces on which they can play.

5.50 p.m.

Commander Noble: I did not intend to take part in the debate, but I have been prompted to do so by the remark of the Lord Privy Seal that a very easy way out of the financial troubles in this matter would be to continue the Festival Gardens and fun fair for up to four years. Other hon. Members seem to be supporting that view. I do hope that we shall be very careful how we approach any decision to extend the period during which Battersea Park will be used for this purpose.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke) has said, this was gone into very carefully with the


London County Council and the two other local authorities, and if they had not agreed with the second plan, having turned down the first one, it might well have been that the Lord President of those days would have had to have gone somewhere other than Battersea Park for the Festival Gardens and the funfair.
I will quote what the Lord President said on the Second Reading, when hon. Members raised the question of Battersea Park being taken over for a much longer period. He said:
We have cut down the time, in association with the two borough councils of Battersea and Chelsea, and I should not like to break faith with them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd November, 1949; Vol. 470, c. 459.]
I ask the right hon. Gentleman for an assurance that he will not break that faith with the London local authorities.
I see in this a very great danger that the Government might try to bludgeon them in the near future by saying, "We have spent so much more money than we should have done that unless the project continues for three or four years there will be a very large loss to the taxpayer. Surely you would not want that to happen?" I ask the Government to say that when they make any approaches the views of the local authorities will be given the most serious consideration, regard being given to the local point of view and the local amenities particularly, instead of to the profit and loss account.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. Gibson: Like the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke), I am a member of the London County Council, and I am also in close touch with what the London ratepayers think about this, and in particularly close touch with the ratepayers who live in the district; but I have not met the violent criticisms and objections in the areas surrounding Battersea Park which the hon. Gentleman seems to imagine. Londoners are enjoying themselves a very great deal in the Festival Gardens. Many of them would like to see the arrangements carried on for very much longer, quite apart from the attempt to recoup some of what appear at the moment to be huge losses.
It is wrong to assume that there is an overwhelming urge among London ratepayers to scrap the project altogether and that they are worried at the apparent losses about which hon. Members are now

talking. The truth is that throughout a section of political opinion in London has damned the fun fair with very faint praise and has not co-operated in trying to make it a success. This is a glorious opportunity for that section to make party political capital in the hope that it may be remembered when the next London County Council elections take place.
I have no difficulty with my constituents in dealing with questions relating to the Festival Gardens. That is not to say that they are not critical of some of the things which have been done. Let us be fair about it; let us not get into the habit of blaming everything on the Communists. I have no room for Communism. I was fighting it and all it stands for long before most hon. Members were in this House and long before the Communist Party of Great Britain came into existence.
It must be remembered that if huge masses of men are put to work in the conditions which existed in Battersea Park during the winter of 1950–51, there is bound to be discontent. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) referred to the mud which he found when he visited the site. Every civil engineering job in the winter is disagreeable, uncomfortable and miserable, but unfortunately the nature of the land in Battersea Park made it a particularly bad spot for workmen, and it would have been a miracle if there had not been a good deal of grumbling and criticism.
Nevertheless, most of them worked loyally all the time, and the trade unions, including the engineers' union, did their utmost to keep the work going without any undue stoppage or hindrance. It is true that grievances were found and that they were exploited. They were exploited very unfairly, and some of the men who fell for the agitation were "led up the garden path." In the end the men realised that they were making a mistake and they then made every effort to get the work done at as early a date as was humanly possible.
One of the troubles was that there was no adequate estimating before the work was started. There hardly could have been adequate estimating, because the plan was expanded while the site was being developed. Changes were made as the work continued, and changes in any construction job must lead to increased


expenditure. There is no doubt that one of the factors in the very high cost of the Gardens was that it was impossible accurately to estimate at the beginning and that only a spot estimate or guess could be made, and—it is no use boggling at it—the guess was a very bad one, as it was at least £1 million out.
If Tivoli Gardens were wanted in London at that time, building them was bound to be a very expensive proposition. Now that the people have seen the Gardens and fun fair they are visiting them in record numbers, and many thousands of people from London and the provinces are seeing for the first time what well-built and well-laid out gardens can be like, and they are getting some fun out of life.
I have known Battersea Park since I was a small boy. I regret that some of the gardens are built on the cricket pitches where I have spent many happy hours. It is doubtful whether we shall ever see the cricket pitches again because some of the permanent buildings now stand on them. However, we have in Battersea Park a type of public pleasure ground that we have never seen before in London, and we ought not lightly to relinquish it when the time comes to close the Exhibition.
I agree with the hon. Member for Hampstead that a tremendous mistake was made about the type of company which was established. I know most of the gentlemen who were placed on the board; all were very active in public life and all had very great ability, but it is obvious that none of them had any responsibility for any part of the work. It is also true that there was nobody on the board who had building experience or civil engineering experience, and that resulted in a looseness of control which no doubt contributed to the great additional cost.
It ought to be made quite clear that the London County Council have cooperated as fully as possible with the Government in trying to make this venture a success. They will be able to take some credit for it when, later on, people boast of the wonderful Exhibition and Festival Gardens we had in London, during Festival year. It is true that they deliberately limited to £40,000 the

amount of loss they were prepared to pay. They did that with their eyes wide open and there has been a good deal of public discussion in London about it. Except in one or two quarters which are not very important, I have not found any serious objection to the London County Council making that provision in its loans to the company for setting up these Gardens.
It has been suggested that in order to recoup ourselves for the extra million we might keep the Gardens on for five years. Frankly I am dubious about that. I should not like to see the fun fair kept on for five years. I am not sure that Londoners would want that. However, I should like to see a good deal of the Festival Gardens retained as a permanent feature of our London parks. The layout around the fountains and many of the buildings ought to be kept, for these would add to the enjoyment of Londoners when they visit Battersea Park in the future.
Having said all that, the fact is that, judging by the numbers who are visiting the Gardens, the people of this country like what they have been provided with. We can only hope that as they are visiting the Gardens in much larger numbers than were originally estimated, the result will be some diminution of the cost. What I am about to say may be used against me later in the election campaign, but I say it was worth while spending money on producing in Battersea Park the finest pleasure ground this country has ever seen, even though there is a net loss at the end. The effect on our people will be great. Not only will they enjoy it, but they will regard it as one of the highest spots in their lives and in the lives of their families in the days to come. I hope, therefore, that the House will give this Bill a Second Reading.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. Marples: After the last three speeches it is quite clear that the Pleasure Gardens cannot continue after the closing date unless there is adequate consultation with the local authorities and that, in addition, no pledge made by the new Foreign Secretary, then Lord President, should be broken. The right hon. Gentleman the Lord Privy Seal, in opening the debate, asked individual Members what they thought about keeping the Festival Gardens open.
Subject to the two qualifications I have made, I would not shut my mind to continuing these Gardens for a reasonable period of time. I visited them several times during construction and also on completion, when I had a most agreeable and enjoyable time. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman himself has been round since completion and seen some of the sideshows. If he goes, I can recommend him to look at the attractive young lady who gets into a block of ice. For the small sum of one shilling, he can see that agreeable and admirable spectacle.
The hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) posed the following question at the beginning of his speech: we must accept the situation as it stands, but how can we save the taxpayers a loss? With respect to my hon. Friend, I should say that we must go further than that. We must analyse the mistakes which have been made in this venture to see how we can prevent further losses to the taxpayer on future Government ventures. That is what I propose to do this afternoon.
I propose to look at this from the point of view of the contractor on the site. I can make my best contribution to the discussion by doing that. Another reason for that approach is that all errors made by the top management, all errors made by the professional architects, and all errors made by the contractor reveal themselves on the site and on the site only. Generally speaking, it is the unfortunate contractor—I speak as one—who is blamed for all the errors, although they may be the fault of the heirarchy above him.
Before I proceed any further, may I make one point clear? On page 9 of the White Paper it will be seen that the lowest tender was from Dowsett Engineering Construction, Limited, and the second lowest tender was from Kirk and Kirk,. Limited. I used to have an interest in the latter company and, in order to avoid misunderstanding on the part of ill-informed persons, I want to make it clear that I had no interest in Kirk and Kirk, Limited, at the time they tendered for this job.
Having said that, let me say that if a contractor is to build speedily and efficiently there are certain contractural principles which must be observed. I shall take two of those principles this afternoon and find out. first, what ought to have been

observed; secondly, what was actually done; and thirdly, how we can avoid it in the future. The two principles are, first, pre-planning, and secondly, and by far the more important, the psychological factor.
Pre-planning was stressed by the Working Party on the Building Industry and also by the Report of the Anglo-American Productivity Team. What must a contractor do to pre-plan? He must prepare a time and progress schedue which shows the order of carrying out the operations. He must show the operations in detail, the dates they are to be started and the dates they are to be finished. He has to fit together in that time and progress schedule all the pieces in the jig-saw puzzle. From that time and progress schedule each department of the contractor picks out its own duties and sees that they are carried out. For example, the labour department will decide how many men are wanted at the beginning, how many men are wanted at the peak, and how many at the end, both skilled and unskilled. They decide how many supervisory staff are needed to look after and to select the men.
What must a contractor know in order to pre-plan and prepare his time and progress schedule? He must know the volume of work and then he must have some information about the site, as well as having access to it. What actually happened in this case? The volume of the work increased from just about half a million in rough figures to almost one and a half million. Therefore, the time and progress schedule, even if it had been prepared by the finest contractors in the country, would have been based on so many false asumptions that it would have been valueless and useless in the early stages.
I regretted that part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, which was fair apart from that one exception, in which he said that if the contractor had been larger it would have been easier. That is not so. Whoever the contractor had been on that site, he would have been in difficulty from the word "go" because his time and progress schedule would have been based on wrong assumptions.
The second thing the contractor should have if he is to prepare an efficient time and progress schedule is some information about the site. We heard a great deal of inarticulate noise from below the


Gangway when we came to the question of it being a wet winter. But what was more important than that was the nature of the soil and its proximity to the Thames. No bore-holes were sunk to find out the nature of the ground, yet every Londoner knows that the ground is absolutely waterlogged. The right hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Key) knows what it is like in Poplar. All along the Thames the land is wet and difficult to deal with in winter.
An elementary mistake was made in not sinking bore-holes. It is no use blaming the bad winter because, even if it had been a fine winter, the result would have been the same. Whether bore-holes were sunk can be found from this: that the schedule of items which was sent to contractors asking them to tender, allowed for hard core to be put down on the site up to a depth of nine inches. In fact, hard core up to a depth of five feet was put on the site, and as they put it down it disappeared before their very eyes.

Mr. Stokes: Only in spots.

Mr. Marples: It only needs a few spots to cost a large amount of money.

Mr. Porter: Is the hon. Member suggesting that the three contractors who made firm estimates for the work they were to do did so without seeing the sites and without understanding the fabric on which they were to work?

Mr. Marples: The hon. Member has a complete misconception of how it was handled. Had he read the White Paper, he would have found how it was done. The authorities—that is, Festival Gardens, Ltd.—sent out to all contractors a document in which were certain specific operations which had to be carried out. Each contractor was required to put next to each operation a price. He had to do the work for that price. In the document sent out by the authorities planning this operation, they said, "Hard core up to nine inches. How much will it cost?" The point was that they did not realise that it was going to take hard core "in spots" up to five feet. Therefore, the contractor was putting down a price on an operation which, in fact, was not going to be carried out.
We ought to go further and see how we can avoid this type of thing happening in the future, not only on Government

ventures, but throughout the building industry as a whole. In fairness to the Government, it must be said that this type of muddle frequently occurs in civil engineering and building work, It would occur less frequently if planning and construction in the building and civil engineering industries were under the same roof and under the same functional control.
For example, in the motor industry, Austin's will plan and design their car and they will then produce it. In the building industry, an architect, who is divorced from and remote from the contractor, will do the planning. He will send the details to the constructional firm who will carry out the construction. If the contractor gets the wrong details from the architect, he is scarcely likely to make a great deal of trouble, because if he does he will not be put upon the tender list by that architect next time. [Interruption.] That is at least a possibility. If the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. McGhee) had read the Anglo-American Productivity Team's Report, he would have found this point brought out.
In the building industry in America, there is closer liaison between the architect and the contractor. In the civil engineering industry there the civil engineering contractors employ their own civil engineering consultants for design purposes. That rarely happens in this country. I should like to see more of a marriage between the designing of the site and its construction in the industry as a whole. I should like the minds of architects, civil engineers and builders to move on those lines, and perhaps to make an investigation to see how far it would be possible to merge the two functions.
Now I come to my next principle of successful contracting, which is the psychological factor. The psychological factor is by far the most important in building. The Anglo-American Productivity Team said:
 The greatest factor for American superiority was the psychological factor.
To get a good psychological climate on a site, two things are necessary. First, we must get a flying start. If a job does not start right, if it does not get its rhythm in the early stages, one never gets a successful job. The second thing is that the duties of individuals must, if


possible, be clear and defined in writing, because no servant likes to serve two masters.
Perhaps I may be allowed to elaborate. What happened over the question of a flying start? Eighty-six thousand pounds worth of work was done in the first six months on a contract of £500,000—and they were the summer months. That was not, therefore, a flying start—it was a crawl. Over £1 million worth of work was done in the last four months. In other words, £1 million worth of work—twice as much as was originally tendered for—was done in one-third of the time; and so the right hon. Gentleman's strictures on the contractor were not quite fair if all these factors are taken into consideration.
What is even more deplorable, from the viewpoint of the men and the technicians on the site, is that the plans were all received late. One hundred detailed plans were received in the month following the completion date. In other words, after the completion date, 100 sets of drawings were sent to the site. How can a contractor carry out his work if he is not told what to do? How can a carpenter carry out his work unless he is given details of the work he is supposed to do?

Mr. Porter: Surely the small amount at first expended by the contractor is due to the fact that only manpower and machines were used in that period, with no cost for materials.

Mr. Marples: The reason for lack of progress in the early stages was that no plans and no information were available. I have seen the correspondence that has passed, and I assure the hon. Member that the reason only £86,000 worth of work was done in the first six months was that no instructions were given as to what had to be done.

Mr. Porter: For the ordinary process of this type of job, it is usual for the contractor first to prepare the site. This work is often given to a different contractor from those who are to put up the superstructures when the preparation on the ground has been done.

Mr. Marples: That is very interesting, but highly irrelevant to this particular point, because if the plans were not received the contractor could not do the

work. He must be told how he is to prepare his site and what he is to do. In this case, however, he was not even given any instructions. The detailed plans are being received now, and he is at this very moment working on detailed plans given to him one or two months after the date fixed for completion; so that he can scarcely be blamed for not keeping on time if he is not told what to do.
How can we get more clarity between the relationships of the firm and the relationships of different individuals? Hon. Members opposite will agree that the relationship between human beings is far more important than putting masses of machinery on a site. We can never get good relationships between human beings unless each person knows what are his specific duties, what he is responsible for, and to whom he is responsible.
In this particular case, the contractor is in charge of the men, but Festival Gardens, Ltd., approached the men direct and had a meeting at their offices. If that happens, the contractor has lost his discipline straight away and has no hope of success. It is exactly the same with a child. If a child cannot get from its mother what it wants, it collars father on his way in before he has seen mother, and the child asks him. If the child gets what it wants from father, then of course mother has lost her discipline over the child.
The method of avoiding this in the industry—again, this happens on many sites—would be for the building industry itself, plus architects and civil engineering consultants, to appoint a joint committee to have an intensive study of site administration. They could give definition of duties in writing, especially a definition of duties of the building employer, because it is most important that people who order architects, quantity surveyors and civil engineering consultants about should have a good idea of what their duties are if they are to have efficient building.
I should like to make one constructive suggestion which should apply to this site in particular. The Government have made an awful muddle of the construction and the right hon. Gentleman who opened the debate admitted as much frankly. I appreciated his contribution and commisserate with him on having to make both the opening and closing speeches in a


post-mortem on a constructional muddle. But why not let us plan the reinstatement of the Gardens as a perfect operation? These Gardens will have to be reinstated and if the right hon. Gentleman has not yet started on that he ought to do so at once and call all the local authorities together to find out what features they wish to retain. Get the L.C.C., Chelsea Council and Battersea Council together to decide what features are to be retained and give them a date by which they must make up their minds. He should then prepare the plans and this time send out full detailed plans with a full specification, and get tenders. He would then get an efficient job carried out very cheaply. If he has not started that now, he should start at once.
Who was to blame for this? Festival Gardens, Ltd., in my opinion, had no chance from the beginning. I have been round the Festival Gardens and enjoyed the fun fair. The design of the gardens and the fun fair is quite brilliant in its conception. Certain parts of it are most attractive and to my mind it has a better layout and has a better line, design and perspective than the South Bank Exhibition. From the point of view of running it, I believe the present board are admirable. It is going splendidly and they know their job. But, from the point of view of constructing the site it was appalling because they violated every principle of successful contracting.
The main blame must fall on the Foreign Secretary. Festival Gardens, Ltd., was his creature and he made the appointments. The company was formed to have a life of about 18 months, and 12 months of that time were spent in construction and six months in running the fun fair and amusement park. Not one single man had any constructional experience, and it is no use saying that a managing director could not have been found.
If the Foreign Secretary had approached the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, or the President of the Federation of Building Trade Employers, he would have got all the advice he wanted free of charge and suggestions for a managing director as well. There is no excuse at all. He talked of planning and we have had from him a string of glib platitudes on planning, but in fact he is almost incapable of planning.
I feel that there are two lessons which all of us, and the Government in particular can learn from this. Most human beings learn by experience. Wisdom is the child of suffering, as the ancient Greeks said. The only difference is that in the Socialist set-up the suffering is not endured by the people who make the mistakes. if that were so and if the money of the Foreign Secretary were involved, he would be a much wiser man than he is now. It is the taxpayer who pays the bill.
The two lessons are, first, not to be in too much of a hurry to do things. We can construct things in a short time if we are prepared to pay the price, but if the time is cut down too much, we shall not get the job done. I remember how in the war criticism was levelled at Congress on armaments and a story was told in Congress of a surgeon who said of a hospital in New York, "This is the finest hospital ever constructed, with great X-ray equipment and the finest physicians, the finest surgeons and the best gynaecologists in the world, but it still takes nine months." That is the first lesson this Government must learn; that they cannot be in a hurry always unless they are prepared to pay the price.
The second lesson is that they come to this House with an idea virtuously expressed in terms of money and they think that a money allocation and a virtuous object are the sole ingredients for success. That is not so at all. I did not think I would ever agree with the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) in anything, but I agree in part with his criticism that the Government never consider the difficulties of translating money allocation into men, materials and construction. It is a sorry story, but out of the muddle lessons can be learned, and I hope that the appalling loss and waste of the taxpayers' money will make some impression on the consciences of hon. Members opposite.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Pannell: I shall not attempt to follow the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) because he speaks with specialised knowledge in a field of which I have no knowledge, except to say that he seemed to give a lecture on certain fundamentals of building and that he was rather being wise after the event.


I do not want to suggest that it was useless because, of course, we are holding an inquiry or, as I suppose he would say, an inquest.
My only experience of large-scale building has been in connection with transport, and if there were any criticism I would make, it is that every lorry should come in and out of the same gateway in order to prevent a lorry coming in with the same load many times over. When I was in the trade it was one of my obligations to guard against that. Warning voices have been raised and not all from the other sick, of the House.
If I were asked to appoint an hon. Member who has had experience of exhibitions, I would suggest my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dodds) who has staged many, including international exhibitions. He said from the beginning that it was useless to attempt to stage this Exhibition of 1951 on the basis of a single year. I was, therefore, rather amazed at the contribution of the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke). He told us how the representatives of local authorities met the Lord President of the Council and the Lord President indicated that if this scheme were put on the basis of five years it would pay for itself, and that in 24 hours they met the Lord President again and it was suggested that the initial cost could be cut down by £500,000 if the show ran only for 12 months. I think the rather simple-minded people on the local authorities took that hook, line and sinker and, presumably, agreed to it.
I think that the hon. Member for Hampstead in his speech this afternoon re-created something of the attitude of many back bench Members opposite all through—the suggestion that somehow this thing would not work. I am not going so far as to say that they did not want it to work, but they have damned it with criticism in this House and by hostile questions ever since the Festival was first envisaged. The hon. Member went on to refer to the fact that we were planning this Festival and having this discussion at a time when there had been a reduction in the cost per head of places in schools and when there were no health centres being built, when there were traffic jams in London and nursery schools were barred.
I thought it was a desirable thing in itself to cut down the cost per head of school places in so far as it had been done by more efficient architecture and by the use of the best brains in the trade, referred to by the hon. Member for Wallasey. The best architects have been brought together and have found that school places can be planned at a much cheaper price than in 1945 and 1946. That has nothing whatever to do with the Festival of Britain but it indicates the sort of approach which is brought into the discussion. Nursery school places have been barred and never allowed since the Education Act became law. They have nothing to do with the Festival. We might just as well discuss this sort of thing on its merits. Health centres have not received the blessing of Government Departments and I do not suppose they will yet awhile.
I want to address myself to the question whether we should allow the Festival to continue. The hon. Member for Hampstead said that he hoped the local authorities would not be overruled. I have a great respect for local authorities; I have been a member of four of them; but I hope that they will not dominate what happens in what, after all, is the capital city of the Empire. There are considerations in London which overrule what some people in Chelsea might think about certain noises and—

Mr. Henry Strauss: Does the hon. Member realise that on the Second Reading of the principal Measure, which enabled Battersea Park to be taken over for this purpose, and which contained in itself specific provisions for the reinstatement of the park after six months, the Minister of Transport said that every provision was made in the Bill for its restoration to the public immediately the period of the Festival was over? There were also specific pledges to the local authorities. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that, the Measure having been obtained on those assurances, those assurances should now be disregarded.

Mr. Pannell: I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman has made a fair point, and I will come to it in a moment.
I would point out that at the time when the local authorities were cogitating whether this project should be allowed


or not, they were, at the meeting to which the hon. Member for Hampstead referred, in the main without experience of what the Festival would be like. Now that they have seen the Festival and its enormous success, it is reasonable that the local authorities, without breaking any pledges, might reasonably be asked to give some sort of reconsideration to this matter in the light of the financial circumstances with which we now have to deal. When the local authorities said "No" they had no experience.
I travel up to this House every morning from Woolwich to Charing Cross. I do not travel up with the sort of people with whom I used to travel when I earned my living with tools—we travelled earlier then. I travel up with the more sedentary sort of people. When this project was under construction and we were passing this spot day by day, one could reflect on what was happening from the conversation in the railway carriage. Generally speaking, that conversation reflected the prejudices of hon. Members opposite, at the beginning. Those people thought that the venture would be no good. Then they began to be curious, and then enthusiastic. Now they are really enthusiastic.
Most people who travel up to town with me on the Southern Railway day by day are now really interested and think the Exhibition is a truly wonderful affair. The Lord Privy Seal has referred to all kinds of funny people whom one would have thought would never become enthusiastic about the Festival. I do not know whether he would regard Lord Kemsley as a funny person, but from that most unexpected quarter praise has been given to the South Bank Exhibition. It has awakened a great deal of pride, public spirit and admiration among people about whom we were doubtful.
Do not let us try—and I am not trying—to excuse the Foreign Secretary's responsibility in this matter; but if we are preparing an indictment let it be reasonably balanced. This idea, I believe, was started by Mr. Gerald Barry in the "News Chronicle." It happened to be one of those ideas that struck the Foreign Secretary as desirable. No one would deny that my right hon. Friend is a good Londoner or the fact that in all his public life he has desired to restore

the South Bank. If we have made something of what was a total slum on a noble river, that is something to his credit. I am speaking of the reclaiming of the South Bank. We must at least concede to the Foreign Secretary the idea and drive to bring about the South Bank Exhibition; but for him there would have been no South Bank Exhibition or Festival.
My right hon. Friend asked us for our opinion whether this kind of project should go on or not. I speak as a Londoner by birth who represents a northern constituency. I have an enormous postbag from people who want to come to the South Bank Exhibition; everyone is enthusiastic about it. For whatever my advice is worth, I say that I hope that the Exhibition will be kept on for a sufficient length of time for Londoners to recoup themselves and for the national Treasury to recoup itself and give as many people as possible the opportunity of seeing something which I believe is a credit to the country.

6.36 p.m.

Mr. Harold Macmillan: There is one general observation which I hope I may be allowed to make upon the position in which we find ourselves today. I trust that in making this reflection I shall not be thought guilty of any disrespect to you, Sir, or of any breach of the canons of good taste. I suppose that it would be reasonable to suppose that there is no one of us who has not, at some time or another, fallen a victim to that peculiar state of moral and physical depression which follows normally and inexorably on the morning after some excessive or at least imprudent jollification the night before.
There may, of course, be exceptions. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. J. Hudson), is one of them.

Mr. James Hudson: I know nothing about it.

Mr. Macmillan: Yet even in his case, for all I know, present austerity may well be the penalty for past dissipations. In any event, whether such an experience is but a vague and shadowy recollection of early youth—as one must hope—or whether it arises from some more recent mischiefs, we probably all know the symptoms and recognise the significance


of that particular pathological state commonly called a hangover.
Today we are enjoying a great national hangover. The Festival Gardens and the Fun Fair have certainly been a very good party, a fine party. To use a favourite phrase of the Foreign Secretary, whom I do not see in his place, "A good time has been had by all." Now—in every sense of the word—we have to pay for it. For this is not one of those parties where the bill has to be settled in cash. That sometimes acts as a moderating influence. This party has definitely been "on tick."
It is true that somebody made an estimate at some stage of what the cost was likely to be. Somebody signed the bill both for the original amount and the extras. Charge it up to the Civil Contingencies Fund. That has served to postpone the evil day. There might be an Election before that time. Now, at last, when the bill is sent in, here it is, and—my word—it is a staggerer. It is difficult to know what to do. In such a predicament, there are really only two things one can do. One can go and see the head waiter, or better still the proprietor, and try to get some reduction—to have some of the more extravagant items knocked off the bill. The other is to go to an indulgent parent or friendly bank manager and hope to get enough accommodation to pay up.
So far as I can see the Government are proposing to adopt both those measures. They, or rather the so-called independent company, of which they and the London County Council own all the shares, are trying to get some adjustment of this outrageous account. I wonder whether the Treasury would call that an independent company if it belonged to the right hon. Gentleman in another capacity? I think it would be called a subsidiary so far as Profits Tax and Income Tax were concerned. I doubt whether at this late stage the saving will amount to much. Still, it may be worth trying. Now they have at last, after intolerable and almost contemptuous delays, come to the House of Commons and owned up.
Meanwhile, this company has behaved in a very peculiar way. The Lord Privy Seal observed, in a sort of obiter dictum, that none of them had ever had any experience of this sort of work. Why then were they appointed? From its incor-

poration in November, 1949, until the end of June, 1950, although it had 14 directors, nobody seemed to have had the bright idea of appointing a managing director. Nor does anyone seem to have thought it necessary to arrange for any adequate accounts or records to be kept—I quote from the Report—or of presenting the board with even the simplest form of weekly or monthly statement of commitments. That again is in the Report.
Even today there seems to be a complete divergence of opinion between the board and the contractor as to whether the work is being carried out on a cost-plus basis or not. Of course, everybody has been quite nice about it; they have just agreed to differ. So far as I can understand the situation, it is cost plus a fixed fee of £57,500. However I may be quite wrong, because the position is very obscure and this is only my guess as to what the contract might possibly be held to mean.
If the board of directors are to blame so also, I think, are the Government. Apparently the Government, right from the start at the beginning of 1948, had assumed that there would be what is called an amusement section of the Festival; and I should think so too, because from my experience of such exhibitions the fun fair is the best part. That was agreed in the beginning of 1948. Why then did they wait until November, 1949, nearly two years later, before the company was incorporated? The board of directors observed, with some justice:
It soon became apparent that, had it been possible for us to be appointed a few months earlier, many difficulties would have been avoided.
It is the same story as with everything else. First dilatoriness and delay; next, hurry and confusion—in a word, "Planning."
I understand from what the Lord Privy Seal has said today that there is now talk of opening the Pleasure Gardens for another year. The Lord Privy Seal has thrown out some hints, and they have been received with varying degrees of enthusiasm from different parts of the House. There was originally, unless I am mistaken, a proposal for a five-year plan—ominous phrase! I personally am not out of sympathy with going on. I think there are great arguments for and


against. But I am told that the buildings are of a temporary nature and not very suitable for a long period. And of course, as we were reminded, such a project could not be promoted without the agreement of the local councils primarily involved.
However, this is really not what we are discussing today. This is not a project for a new flotation. This is apost mortemon a bankrupt business. Really, we must not mix up what the new company—as has so often happened in these affairs—having written off all the cost, might be able to float at a lower rate at another stage. That is not what we are here to discuss. The one great thing which has happened today is that the Lord Privy Seal has been reasonably frank with the House. The House likes frankness.
I have heard it said somewhere, or have read somewhere, that if an hon. Member were to stand up after Questions and, having obtained your leave, Sir, to make a personal statement, were to say that he wished to make a frank disclosure to the House, trusting to the sense of fairness and consideration of his fellow Members; that he had to confess that during the previous Sitting, which had lasted all night—and was one of many recent all-night Sittings—he had been irritated beyond all reason by the loud snorings of a fellow Member in the Library; that, after several vain attempts to stop this intolerable nuisance, he had lost control of himself and sloshed this hon. Gentleman on the head with a poker, that he had unfortunately cracked the hon. Gentleman's skull and the hon. Gentleman had succumbed under the blow; that although the incident had not yet been noticed, as the hon. Gentleman was only one among many still recumbent figures —though no longer snoring—he had thought it right, at the first opportunity, to make this personal explanation and to ask for the sympathy of his fellow Members in this misfortune; it has been said that if an hon. Member were thus to confess his fault fairly and frankly, and, as it were, ask leave to withdraw the blow, then, in accordance with the best traditions of the House of Commons, his statement would be received with general, if subdued, applause from every part of the Chamber; and after suitable remarks from the Leader of the House, from the

Leader of the Opposition, and, of course, from the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), the incident would be regarded as closed.
Well, I think that the Lord Privy Seal has adopted somewhat similar tactics in his difficulty today. But, of course, the truth is that this particular misdemeanour of the Government does not stand by itself. It is not a singular misfortune or miscalculation. It is one of an immense series. It is not just one muddle, it is one more muddle. Of course, with so many competing masterpieces in this genre it cannot claim to be among the greatest performances. It cannot, for instance, compare either in a massive size and boldness of conception, or in breadth of execution with a really fine Strachey, or a Webb of the best period. It is on too limited a scale for that. Still, in its way, it is, if not outstanding, at least of a very high order.
Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples), has pointed out in a most admirable and informed speech, it reproduces, on a restricted canvas, all the characteristic mannerisms of the really great artists of this school. After all, even a difference on, I think, an Exchequer share of the original estimate of half a million, to get to a million-and-a-half, is a very respectable margin of error. It is therefore, if I may repeat or adapt a famous phrase, a little gem of mismanagement; a cameo of incompetence, a perfect little miniature of muddle, which will long hold a treasured place in the esteem of all true connoisseurs or collectors.
It is symbolic, if further signs were needed, of the whole character of Socialism, and, from this point of view, the comparison already drawn by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), between the Exhibition of 1851 and the Festival of 1951 is not without some interest. The Exhibition of 1851 was financed by private subscriptions and guarantees. It was built in record quick time. It made a substantial profit the interest on which, after investment, has been distributed and is still being distributed to various deserving causes.
The effort of 1951 was guaranteed and financed by the State; it was, at any rate in certain parts, constructed in record slow time, and is expected to stand in as a


charge to the taxpayer to the tune of many millions. The evolution from the reactionary conceptions of the 19th century to the bolder influences of the 20th is, I suppose, to be regarded as a triumph of planned progress.
Amid so many disappointments and disillusionments, we are destined to suffer still another. I understand that the Lord Privy Seal, not content with opening this debate, which he did admirably, intends also to make the closing speech. How strange. This is indeed "Hamlet" without the ghost. What can have happened to his predecessor? All through this report, I keep reading about agreements and contracts between—they are all down on page 4—a gentleman whose office is always printed in capitals, called the Lord President of the Council (hereinafter called "The Lord President"). Pages four and five of this report set out, in splendid legal language, all this grandee's rights and obligations.
What has happened to him? Is he ill, that he cannot tell us his story? Or is he so modest that he prefers to leave the limelight to a colleague? Does he still exist, this great dignitary? Perhaps he has been liquidated, or translated, like Elijah, leaving his mantle, but precious little else? Or can the Foreign Office have run out of white sheets? They should really get in a store. They will soon need them again.
Of course, we did not expect him to answer in regard to details, but we thought that he might have been here today, because this, after all, is his show. This is the great inquest, if not the funeral, and he should come as the chief mourner. Whatever the explanation, I must say one thing about the right hon. Gentleman who has succeeded to this property, such as it is. The whole House will be as forbearing as possible to so disarming a penitent, but I do wish that the real sinner, who takes credit for all the fun, had been personally in charge, at least for one stage, of the Government's corporate act of confession and contrition. I think the Foreign Secretary ought to take the kicks; after all, he has had the ha'pence.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and others of my hon. Friends have made so forceful and detailed an attack on this long story of muddle that

I should risk falling under your displeasure, Sir, and be guilty of tedious repetition if I were once more to go through all this melancholy story. I think that pages 2 and 3 of the Interim Report summarise the matter better than anything I can say—no proper plan; no expert building contractor on the board; no delegation of specific duties; no suitable managing director; exceptionally low labour output, and subversive influences anxious to ferment trouble.
I think there is one thing that must be said. The Lord Privy Seal made some reference to it. It is intolerable that the public should have to bear this large burden, and no redress or penalty exacted, if it should be found that there are serious defalcations and serious errors which ought to be punished. I think the right hon. Gentleman told us that these investigations will be carried further, and I hope they will be.
I will end by saying that we are all enjoying the Festival. We particularly enjoy the Festival Gardens, and especially the fun fair. I hope I shall not be thought too controversial if I say that perhaps the best feature of the Festival itself is to be found, not only and certainly largely on the South Bank, but in the various efforts made, in the towns and villages throughout the country, to make their local contributions to the general theme. In many instances, this has resulted in the creation of great beauty and the revival of some of the forgotten glories of the drama, music and poetry of our country.
We are enjoying the Gardens, too; so I suppose we must pay for them. We have had the party; so we must "cough up the ready," but we may also do well to remind ourselves that, in this sphere, there has been the same gross mismanagement and confusion as prevails in so many other fields. It was said of a great man, "He touched nothing that he did not adorn." I think it will be said of this Administration, "They touched nothing that they did not muddle."
As I have said, we have got to pay the money, under one heading or another of the national accounts. Nevertheless, we must mark our censure of the Ministers responsible. We shall, therefore, divide against the Second Reading of this Bill. In those circumstances, all that we can do is to underline, both in the House and


the country, the lessons to be learnt and to be applied. There have been days, when fashions and customs were different, when the Ministers responsible for such great losses would have thought seriously of tendering their resignations. That we cannot insist upon, but this I am sure of —that, when they are given the chance, the electors will not rest content with the fall of one or two Ministers. They will decide to "sack the lot."

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Stokes: It is only by leave of the House that I can speak again, and, while what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. Macmillan) has said is perfectly true about my having that intention, I hope I may have that leave to try to wind up the debate.
In its opening phases, the debate did not seem to arouse a lot of interest. I thought on reflection, as the benches emptied, that perhaps it was evidence of the real appreciation by the majority of hon. Members that the project is really a tremendous success and that they were not really interested in scoring political points. Be that as it may, the speeches that followed, and they were many, contained many critical and helpful points, and I will endeavour, as I promised I would, to answer the criticisms, although I do not suppose for a moment that it will be to the satisfaction of the people who made them. I suffered from the same trouble myself for many years when sitting below the Gangway.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) opened his speech in a somewhat caustic manner by welcoming the change which had occurred in the responsibility for the Festival, in that it had been transferred from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to myself, but I want to repeat, to a fuller House than we had when I opened the debate, and at the risk of repetition, that but for my right hon. Friend the great success which the Festival has attained would never have been achieved at all. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) to scoff. The fact is that up and down the country people are enthusiastic about the whole scheme, and it was largely due to my right hon. Friend that the matter was ever brought to a final conclusion.
The right hon. Member for Streatham asked whether the Government accepted responsibility for Festival Gardens Ltd. The Government must do that, but let me say at once that the whole idea of forming Festival Gardens Ltd. was to relieve the Government of direct active responsibility in matters of this kind. It was even suggested that meddling with fun fairs was not, possibly, a suitable Government activity. Therefore, a board was got together, and, whatever may be said about that board, contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman said, it certainly is well-balanced.
The board has every kind of representation. It is full of the most intelligent, ingenious and well-informed people. The criticism which I made of it in my opening remarks was that all boards of directors, however skilful and however full of well-informed people, are not much good unless they are topped up by a managing director who can boss them. I have always said that.
It is unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman dragged Mr. Crainford's name into the debate. I tried to keep it out, because he has suffered enough. I entirely support what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. McAllister), that Mr. Crainford made a most useful contribution, not only to the fun fair and the Festival Gardens, but to the South Bank as well. He is an admirable man for what I would call the festive side of the job, which is very important, because there are all sorts of features.
The fact is that few people—I have not been often enough, though I used to go two or three times a week when the job was under construction—have been to the Festival to see how much depends on the performance of those who have to be brought in from outside. It all has to be planned, though I know that the word "planned" is to hon. Members opposite like a red flag to a bull. But there it is.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me to give an explanation of why these costs had soared. Had he listened to my opening speech attentively and had he not done what so many of us do, written his speech beforehand, he would probably not have asked me to do that. I do not mean that offensively. I did try to explain that until this job is costed up and analysed, it is impossible to explain in detail how the


increases occurred for the various sections of the project. I could enumerate all the ones listed in the White Paper to which the right hon. Gentleman has just referred, but that would not really be giving the facts.
One of the matters which added considerably to the cost was that in the original suggestion there were sponsored items, amounting to something like £125,000, and undertaken by outside people, which were thrown back on to the company who had to do them themselves. The total overall figure was just under £2,500,000. To make assurance doubly sure that my right hon. Friend would not have to come to the House and ask for more, a considerable increase—more than a quarter of a million—was made in the contingency items. If we look at page 12 of the report we see that the contractors themselves have set out sums adding up to £360,000, which they think should rightly be reimbursed to them.

Mr. Sandys: The point I was asking the right hon. Gentleman to clear up was how the estimate of £800,000 for total expenditure given to the House in November, 1949, had risen, by March, 1950, to £1,168,000 before any contract had been placed and before any work had been done. That suggests that the original estimate was not based on firm reality. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how that came about, and why the House was not informed?

Mr. Stokes: If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the White Paper, he will find that the £800,000 was the original cost, and that the £1,168,000 included running the show for six months.
I shall explain in a moment precisely what happened about the Question to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. What added to the extra expense were changes in design and improvement which, if the Festival Gardens go on for more than a year will lead to an ultimate cheapening of the initial cost. Both right hon. Gentlemen opposite complained about the absence of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. With great respect, they cannot have it' both ways. I happened to be abroad a short while ago and asked my right hon. Friend to answer a Question on this matter for me. He was imme-

diately chastised by the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) for attending to trivial matters instead of concentrating his attention on foreign affairs. If there was ever a day on which my right hon. Friend should be concentrating on foreign affairs, I consider it is today. It was very churlish of the right hon. Gentleman, in an otherwise humorous and agreeable speech, to have castigated my right hon. Friend for doing what we and the whole Opposition consider to be his prime job.
The right hon. Member for Streatham asked whether my right hon. Friend was kept informed. Here I am in some difficulty, because with this rather unusual set-up it is extremely difficult to arrive at a real conclusion as to who did what. [Interruption.] I am not conceding a point on this at all. My right hon. Friend, with the approval of the Government and through the support of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed to the formation of this company which was to take the responsibility for carrying through the work. They were to report to him from time to time, although they did not always report as regularly as I would have thought they should have done.
This rise from£1,100,000 to £1,600,000 was reported to my right hon. Friend at the end of last year. He immediately wrote back to the company and said, "Does this mean that you want extra loans to see you through, or can you finance yourselves and pay for it out of your revenue?" As is shown in the White Paper, the categorical reply received by him was, "We require no extra loans. We shall be able to see the job through."
It was not until the middle of March, when it was found that, in fact, the cost would be extremely in excess of that figure, that my right hon. Friend, when advised, immediately came to this House to tell it and to take the necessary steps to set the whole thing in motion. The result is that we have this Bill today. He challenged the company about extra money, and he was told that they did not want it. That being so, I think it unfair to say that he deceived the House or did not inform it at the earliest possible moment of something about which it should have been informed.
Now I come to the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea (Commander Noble) and by the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke).

Mr. Sandys: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to explain the incident of 6th March and how the Foreign Secretary came to give a completely inaccurate statement to the House showing that he was completely out of touch with the company?

Mr. Stokes: Yes, I think I can do that from memory also. What happened was this. The estimate of November, £1,600,000, was the only figure in the possession of the Lord President when he answered the question on 6th March. As far as I can elucidate it from the company, in the early days of the year they sensed that things were not going quite as well as they had hoped. [Laughter.] No, this is serious. They immediately asked the quantity surveyors to go into the matter again. They did so and produced a larger figure on, I think, 10th February but reported on 28th February. That was not communicated to the Lord President because the chairman of the company did not accept it. He turned it back to the quantity surveyors and said he was quite sure there were mistakes. He was then under the false impression that he was not on a cost-plus contract, but that is another question altogether.
The only figure in the possession of the then Lord President was the £1,600,000 of the November costs. It so happened that on 8th March the quantity surveyors came back with a slightly enhanced figure over the estimates in February and thereupon the whole thing was brought to the notice of the Treasury in detail. The whole situation was examined and finally a figure of £2,400,000 odd was put down as the figure of possible eventuality, some of which I hope will not be needed.

Mr. Sandys: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us quite definitely whether the figures given by the Lord President to the House on 6th March were obtained from the company or did he merely take the figures he received in November, because the answer he gave indicated that he had obtained them from the company?

Mr. Stokes: They were figures obtained from the company. Although the

officials of the company had knowledge of the increased cost as estimated by the quantity surveyors, they were not prepared to pass it to the Lord President as a new figure because they were satisfied that that figure was wrong, and that the matter should be re-examined. It may seem odd, but that is precisely what happened and those are the facts. My right hon. Friend was not in possession of any other figure when he gave his reply on 6th March.

Captain Waterhouse: I am chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and that Committee has now laid a Report before the House. Within one week of this declaration being made by the Lord President in the House the company told us they knew these figures were quite erroneous and based on the estimate of November. Are we really being asked to believe they did not indicate that to the Lord President one week before?

Mr. Stokes: Astonishing as that may seem, that is so. [Interruption.] One does not ask every day whether the price has gone up. It is absolutely so. I do not know whether I am allowed to say this or not, but on 8th March the chairman of the company appeared before the Committee of which the right hon. and gallant Member for Leicester, South-East (Captain Waterhouse), is a Member two days after the Lord President gave the answer to the House, and on 6th March the Lord President was not aware of that figure. [An HON. MEMBER: "He ought to have been."] He could not have been aware of it because the company responsible did not tell him and my right hon. Friend had something more to do than to go round asking whether there had been a change in the front.
Let us be quite clear that there is no question in my mind of trying to bludgeon the authorities to agree to an extension of time merely on the financial issue. The House can extend the time if it likes. That is a matter for the House and the Government are perfectly prepared to agree if the House so decides. My opinion is there is little doubt that public opinion will have something to do with it and not merely the question of cost. My view is that the public has taken this thing to its heart.
As to the complaint of the hon. Member for Hampstead about the workings of


Festival Gardens, Ltd., I can only say that the London County Council were fairly substantially represented on the board, as he himself said and even his party, whatever they call themselves, had the opportunity to have representation, but they refused it.
I am not going to join issue with the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) on criticism and advice with regard to civil engineering and building. I hope civil engineers throughout the country will read his speech and that all builders will read what I read into it. I know we are agreed on some of these points on how to maintain a site, but they are hardly germane to the discussion today. It is hardly likely that we shall see an occasion similar to this in our lifetime, at any rate not arising from the same reason.
I have nothing to say to him except on the question of demolition. I am not entirely sure about this, but I will call the attention of the Festival Gardens, Ltd., to his suggestion. I may add that I hope we shall not need to demolish and that ways and means will be found to keep the Festival Gardens and fun fair going.
I was glad to find the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) wholeheartedly in favour of keeping the fun fair and gardens open as a permanency and emphasising the need for people to have enjoyment and recreation at a time when extra effort and skill are being asked of them to meet defence and similar needs. I will certainly see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer catches sight of and bears in mind the hon. Gentleman's comments on procedure, that is, as to what should be done with regard to matters of this kind.
Finally, I come to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan). May I say to him, first, that this cost-plus story is a most extraordinary one. It is quite evident that the contractors as from November-December last year were under the impression that they were on cost-plus. It is quite evident that the board decided that that was the case when they passed the minute of 22nd March, 1951. It is equally evident that some members of the board did not seem to know that was the case. I cannot explain that. I only know it to be a fact, and here cost-plus

is not a cost-plus in the true sense of the term but cost-plus on a fixed fee of £57,500.
The right hon. Member for Bromley asked me to explain the delay in appointing the board, but I spent about five or six minutes in doing that in my opening speech today. I tried to explain why it had not been possible at first to take a decision as to where the Festival Gardens and the fun fair should be placed. When it was decided that the Gardens and fun fair should be in Battersea Park, the board were appointed within a few months, but as everyone goes away lock, stock and barrel for a considerable period at that time, there was difficulty in getting a board together. I do not criticise the board. I think it was well balanced and I have already met the criticism that it did not function successfully.
There really is no use in bleating over spilt milk, more especially if one can pick up the milk again if one really wants to do so. The Festival undoubtedly is a huge success. I would go so far as to suggest to those people on the benches opposite who have not yet been to the Festival Gardens, to the gloomy lady, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir), who broadcast on Saturday, to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham, who is in so much doubt about the whole show, and to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that I should be very glad to accompany them if they will all come for an evening to the fun fair and see how much better they will all feel when they return home.
In conclusion, to the right hon. Member for Bromley, who I think delighted everybody by his speech, even though most of us do not agree with him, I would say that I ask leave to withdraw the blow and let the baby live, because I am sure it will wax and flourish and be a great and permanent success, which is what all the people really want

7.21 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I thought the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) expressed a view which was widely held on both sides of the House. This is a great national institution. It has suffered a good deal in the past from the sort of criticism to which it has been subjected to night from the party opposite. As one who has been to both sections


of this great Exhibition, I speak of it with unstinted praise. Whatever was said in the past, I should have thought that by now we have reached the stage when we could accept this as a very great symbol of British initiative, workmanship and ingenuity, and an indication that Britain has something that it can still show to the world—something of the craftsmanship, workmanship and joy of its people. I agree sincerely with the hon. Member for Abingdon in his expression of hope that both sections of the Exhibition will become a part of our national life.
This is a very simple Bill designed to reimburse certain losses or over-expenditure incurred in connection with the Festival Gardens. I have failed to understand some of the speeches which we have heard suggesting how we should deal with this very difficult problem. The persons who are on the board were not criticised at the time of their appointment. The appointments were not a matter of controversy. These people were chosen by the Government to perform certain functions; it is regrettable that we should be discussing at some length whether they performed their duties with thought, discretion or ability, but certainly nobody criticised them at the time.
They were performing these duties on behalf of the Government. They were carrying out the provisions of a Bill which had been passed by both sides of the House, and it seems to me incredible that it should now be suggested that there should be a Division on this matter —a Division designed to prevent the expenditure of the money, amounting to a vote of censure on public servants who are unable to defend themselves here, after the fullest investigation and after the fullest facts have been given to the House by the Public Accounts Committee, in the White Paper and in every sort of information which can be put forward.
There was uncertainty about the Festival Gardens, which lasted for several months during the passage of the previous Bill. There were delays here. There were occasions here when we did not know whether the Festival Gardens would open on Sundays or not, whether or not the fun fair would open on Sun-

days, how the space would be allocated, and so on. That of itself meant considerable delay. It held up at the most vital moment in the summer the work which might well have succeeded. The facts are well known to every Member of this House. It is not fair to talk about December and January in the same terms as one can talk about June and July. Of course, if work had started in the summer, when the work could have been done faster, the ground could have been laid out and the building operations would have proceeded in the winter. It is too bad of hon. Members opposite not to accept their own share of responsibility in this matter, because in the early stages they did not co-operate.
We have not been told in the course of this debate how many Members opposite have taken the opportunity of visiting the Festival Gardens and seeing the interesting spectacle and magnificent organisation. Some time the whole history will be written of how these beautiful gardens have been enabled to flower so early in the year after all the tremendous difficulties with which the Festival Gardens Committee had to contend. Any night now when any hon. Member opposite cares to go down there he will see at least 20,000 people enjoying themselves innocently, deriving benefit from the cultural, horticultural and agricultural sections and taking part in something which really ought in some way or another to become part of our national life.
We have already heard speeches dealing with the cause of the delay, and I do not wish to refer to it in detail, but I would say this. Everyone can understand the reluctance which was voiced by the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. H. Brooke)—who has the privilege of representing more Members of Parliament than any other Member of this House—and I can sympathise with his views. Everyone can understand that no London authority would willingly forgo an acre of London parks without consideration. There was a celebrated occasion when, I think, Queen Charlotte asked what was the cost of constructing a passage through Hyde Park and Sir Robert Walpole replied, "Two Crowns."
Any effort to restrict the use of London's parks is a matter of grave consideration to every local authority concerned. It was reasonable and right that


they should examine the proposal with care and almost with reluctance. It was reasonable and right that, in considering this matter, they should have regard to the necessary amenities of the people of London, and no one will blame them for that. All I wish to say is that this matter has been fully discussed. My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal presented it with moderation, and, indeed, no one could have more frankly admitted that mistakes had occurred. In those circumstances, I hope the House will not find it necessary to divide.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. James Hudson: I have been assisted in my attempt to take part in this debate by the allusions which were made to me by the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan). He referred to "a hangover," and said that everybody who knew what a hangover was would agree with him in his diagnosis of the situation. I had to tell him that I did not know very much about what happened when men suffered from hangovers, although the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that I might have been involved in situations which would have enabled me to understand these things.
I have not at any time been in a position which has enabled me to describe exactly what takes place in such circumstances, but I can guess from the situation in which the Opposition find themselves that they are suffering very badly from a hangover induced by the long process of nagging suggestions not merely that this was too expensive a scheme but that it was a scheme on which, in these days, we ought never to have embarked.
What has emerged clearly from this debate is that the Festival of Britain has proved to be a roaring success. The difficulty is, of course, that the Opposition, remembering their past, cannot roar. They have engaged in bitter diatribes against its wastefulness; they have gone

a good deal further and suggested that in view of present international difficulties we should never have attempted such a thing at all. They have never grown weary of suggesting that in a country with a housing shortage such as ours the people who needed the houses would not give their consent to the expenditure of building labour upon what has been accomplished both on the South Bank and at Battersea.

Mr. Speaker: We are not discussing the South Bank. We are discussing the Festival Gardens and Battersea Park.

Mr. Hudson: I wish only to emphasise a point which has emerged very clearly tonight—and I took my part in the early discussions when the late Lord President of the Council introduced this scheme to the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "The former Lord President."] Well, the ex-Lord President; I supported vigorously what he then proposed. The Conservative Party have called all the attention they possibly can to what I would admit to be the financial failures in control which have accompanied the details of the work done in connection with the Festival.
The general result of the work is of such a character that I am quite certain that the people as a whole will be very glad of the part which the Government have played. Although the Opposition seem to have made up their minds to submit this to a Division this evening, I am certain that later they may have reason to regret having done so, because the final judges will be the mass of the people who are very well pleased with the great experiment and are glad that the work has been done which has produced the Festival.

Question put, "That the Bill now be read a Second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 235; Noes, 228.

Division No. 149.]
AYES
7.35 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Benson, G.
Brooks, T. J. (Normanton)


Adams, Richard
Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Bing, G. H. C.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)


Awbery, S. S.
Blenkinsop, A.
Brown, Thomas (lnce)


Ayles, W. H.
Blylon, W. R.
Burke, W. A.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Boardmam, H.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.


Baird, J.
Booth, A.
Callaghan, L. J.


Balfour, A
Bottomley, A. G
Castle, Mrs. B. A


Bartley, P.
Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Champion, A. J.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Chetwynd, G R


Benn, Wedgwood
Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Clunie, J




Cocks, F. S.
Hughes. Hector (Aberdeen, N)
Rankin, J.


Coldrick, W
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Rees, Mrs. D.


Collick, P.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Reeves, J.


Collindridge, F
Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)


Cook, T F.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Reid, William (Camlachie)


Cooper, Geoffrey (Middlesbrough, W.)
Jay, D. P. T.
Rhodes, H.


Cooper, John (Deptford)
Jeger, Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S.)
Richards, R.


Cove, W. G.
Jenkins, R. H.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Crosland, C. A. R.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Crossman, R. H. S.
Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Ross, William


Daines, P.
Jones, Frederick Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Royle, C.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Jones, William Elwyn (Conway)
Shackleton, E. A. A.


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Keenan, W.
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Kenyon, C.
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
King, Dr. H. M.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Kinley, J.
Simmons, C. J.


Deer, G.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Slater, J.


Delargy, H. J.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Smith, Elk's (Stoke, S.)


Diamond, J.
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Snow, J. W.


Dodds, N. N.
Lindgren, G. S.
Sorensen, R. W.


Donnelly, D.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Logan, D. G.
Sparks, J. A.


Dye, S.
Longden, Fred (Small Heath)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
MacColl, J. E.
Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.


Edwards, John (Brighouse)
McGhee, H. G.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Mack, J. D.
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. Edith


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
McLeavy, F.
Sylvester, G. O.


Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)
McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Fernyhough, E.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Taylor, Robert (Morpeth)


Field, Capt. W. J
Mainwaring, W. H.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Finch, H. J.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Thomeycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Follick, M
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Thurtle, Ernest


Foot, M. M.
Mathers, Rt. Hon. G.
Tomney, F.


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mayhew, C. P.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Mellish, R. J
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Ganley. Mrs. C. S.
Messer, F.
Vernon, W. F.


George, Lady Megan Lloyd
Mikardo, Ian.
Viant, S. P.


Gibson, C. W.
Mitchison, G. R
Wallace, H. W.


Glanville, James (Consett)&lt;&gt;
Mceran, E. W.
Watkins, T. E.


Gordon-Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Monslow, W.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Granville, Edgar (Eye)
Moody, A. S.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Wells, William (Walsall)


Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Wakefield)




Grenfell, D. R.
Morley, R.
West, D. G.


Grey, C. F.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John (Edinb'gh, E.)


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham. S.)
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mort, D. L.
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Murray, J. D.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Gunter, R. J.
Neat, Harold (Bolsover)
Wigg, G.


Haire, John E. (Wycombe)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Wilcoak, Group Capt. C. A. B


Hale, Joseph (Rochdale)
O'Brien, T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Oliver, G. H.
Willey, Frederick (Sunderland)


Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Orbach, M.
Willey, Octavius (Cleveland)


Hall, John (Gateshead, W.)
Padley, W. E.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


Hamilton, W. W.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Hardman, D. R.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Williams, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Don V'lly)


Hardy, E. A.
Pannell, T. C.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


Hayman, F. H.
Pargiter, G A
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Tipton)
Parker, J.
Wise, F. J.


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Paton, J.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A


Hobson, C. R.
Pearson, A.
Wyatt, W. L.


Holman, P.
Popplewell, E.
Yates, V. F.


Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Porter, G.
Younger, Rt. Hon K.


Houghton, D.
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)



Hoy, J.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Proctor, W. T.
Mr. Bowden and


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Mr. Kenneth Robinson




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N.W.)


Alport, C. J. M.
Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Bennett, 'Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Bevins, J. R. (Liverpool, Toxteth)
Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Birch, Nigel
Browne, Jack (Govan)


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R (Blackburn, W.)
Bishop, F. P.
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.


Astor, Hon. M. L.
Black, C. W.
Bullock, Capt. M,


Baker, P. A. D.
Boothby, R.
Bullus, Wing Commander E. E


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J M.
Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Burden, F. A.


Baldwin, A. E.
Boyle, Sir Edward
Butcher, H. W.


Banks, Col. C
Bracken, Rt. Hon. B
Butler, Rt. Hen. R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)


Baxter, A. B
Braine, B. R.
Carson, Hon. E.




Channon, H.
Hylton-Foster, H. B.
Remnant, Hon. P.


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W S.
Jeffreys, General Sir George
Renton, D. L. M.


Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Roberts, Maj. Peter (Heeley)


Clarke, Brig, Terence (Portsmouth, W)
Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Robertson, Sir David (Caithness)


Colegate, A.
Kaberry, D.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Robson-Brown, W.


Cooper, San. Ldr. Albert (Ilford, S.)
Kingsmill, Lt.-Col. W. H
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Lambert, Hon. G.
Roper, Sir Harold


Cranborne, Viscount
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Russell, R. S.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Langford-Holt, J.
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D


Crowder, Capt. John (Finchley)
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Crowder, Petre (Ruislip— Northwood)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E A H
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D


Cuthbert, W N.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T.
Savory, Prof. D L


Davies, Nigel (Epping)
Linstead, H. N.
Scott, Donald


de Chair, Somerset
Llewellyn, D.
Shepherd, William


De la Bère, R.
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (King's N'rt'n)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Deedes, W. F.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Digby, S. Wingfield
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S.W.)
Soames, Capt. C.


Donner, P. W.
Low, A. R. W.
Spearman, A. C. M.


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Lucas, P, B. (Brentford)
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Dugdale, Maj, Sir Thomas (Richmond)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Stanley, Capt. Hn. Richard (N. Fylde)


Dunglass, Lord
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Eccles, D. M.
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
McKibbin, A.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Elliot, Rt. Hon W. E
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Fisher, Nigel
Maclean, Fitzroy
Studholme, H. G.


Fletcher, Walter (Bury)
MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.)
Sutcliffe, H.


Fort, R.
MacLeod, John (Ross and Cromarty)



Foster, John
Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)


Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Macpherson, Major Niall(Dumfries)
Taylor William (Bradford, N)


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
Maitland, Cmdr. J. W.
Teeling, W.


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Thomas, J. P. L.(Hereford)


Galbrailh, T. G D (Hillhead)
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Thompson, Lt.-Cmdr, R (Croydon, W.)


Gammans, L. D.
Marples, A. E.
Thorneycroft Peter (Monmouth)


Garner-Evans, E. H. (Denbigh)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Thornton-Kemsley, Col C N


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Marshall, Sidney (Sutton)
Thorp, Brig R. A F


Glyn, Sir Ralph
Maude, Angus (Ealing S.)
Tilney, John


Grimston, Hon, John (St. Albans)
Maudling, R
Touche, G. C.


Grimston, Robert (Westbury)
Medlicott, Brig. F
Turner, H. F. L.


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Mellor, Sir John
Turton, R. H.


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Molson, A. H. E.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Monckton, Sir Walter
Vane, W. M. F


Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir Thomas
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K


Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Vosper, D. F.


Hay, John
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Headlam, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir Cuthbert
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Heald, Lionel
Nabarro, G.
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Nicholls, Harmar
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. G


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W W.
Nicholson, G.
Watkinson, H.


Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Webbe, Sir Harold


Hirst, Geoffrey
Nugent, G. R. H
Whealley, Major M. J. (Poole)


Hollis, M. C.
Oakshott, H. D.
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Odey, G W
Williams, Charles (Torquay)


Hopkinson, Henry
Osborne, C
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Hornsby-Smith, Miss P.
Perkins, W. R. D
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Horsbrugh, Rt Hon. Florence
Peto, Brig. C. H. M
Wills, G.


Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Pickthorn, K.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Howard, Greville (St. Ives)
Pitman, I. J.
Winterton, Rt Hon Earl


Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Powell, J. Enoch
Wood, Hon R


Hudson, Rt. Hon. Robert (Southport)
Price, Henry (Lewisham. W.)
York, C


Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)
Prior-Palmer, Brig O.



Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J
Profumo, J. D.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hurd, A R.
Raikes, H. V.
Mr. Drewe and


Hutchinson, Geoffrey (Ilford, N)
Rayner, Brig. H
Brigadier Mackeson.


Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M
Redmayne, M.



Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow. —[Mr. Kenneth Robinson.]

Orders of the Day — FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN (ADDITIONAL LOANS) [MONEY]

Considered in Committee of the whole House under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees). [King's Recommendation signified.]

[Colonel Sir Charles MACANDREW in the Chair]

Resolved:

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to authorise the making of additional loans to the company formed for the purpose of managing the Festival Gardens provided in Battersea Park as part of the Festival of Britain, 1951, it is expedient to authorise—

(a) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of sums (not exceeding in the aggregate one million pounds) required by a Minister of the Crown for the purpose of making loans under the said Act of the present Session to the said company;
(b) the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by any such Minister by way of interest on, or the repayment of, loans made by him under the said Act of the present Session to the said company; and
(c) the release by any such Minister, n whole or in part, of claims in respect of loans so made.—[Mr. Stokes.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

SIR WILLIAM TURNER'S HOSPITAL AT KIRKLEATHAM BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(CONFIRMATION OF SCHEME.)

7.45 p.m.

Mr. M. Philips Price: I beg to move, in page 1, line 18, after "scheme," to insert "as amended."
With your permission, Sir Charles, I should like to speak to all the other Amendments standing in my name on the Order Paper, which are consequential. By explaining all at once I can save the time of the Committee. I should like to explain how it has been necessary for this Amendment and the others to be put down.
This Clause and the scheme in the Schedule set up trustees to administer this Sir William Turner's Kirkleatham Trust. Since the Second Reading of the

Bill one of the trustees, Sir Robert Bainbridge, has died. It has been found that the Borough of Redcar, which is in the neighbourhood of the Trust's premises, would like to be represented amongst the trustees. Therefore, the Charity Commissioners think that it would be a wise and good thing that the wish of the Borough of Redcar should be met. It is, therefore, necessary to make these alterations in the Bill. The representative trustees are to be increased from one to two—the trustees representing bodies like district councils and the borough councils —and the co-optative trustees are to be reduced from seven to six. That is all that the Amendments are concerned with and I hope that the Committee will agree to them.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: We would not propose to offer any opposition to the Amendments. I believe that these are to the advantage of the scheme as a whole, and that they are part of the adjustments which are generally done by the consent of all parties in Parliament when the previous arrangements made by pious donors are manifestly out of date.

Mr. Octavius Willey: I support what has been said. I represent the constituency of Cleveland, and Redcar is in it. There was some uneasiness about this, but I assure the Committee that everyone is very happy about the proposals, and I hope that the matter will be carried through without any complaint.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule

Amendments made: In page 2, line 30, to leave out "One," and to insert "Two."

In line 30, to leave out "Trustee," and to insert "Trustees."

In line 31, to leave out "Seven," and to insert "Six."

In line 32, to leave out "Trustee," and to insert "Trustees."

In line 32, to leave out "Trustee," and to insert "Trustees."

In line 33, after second "time," to insert "one."

In line 34, after "borough," to insert:
and one by the borough council of Redcar.

In line 36, to leave out "said."

In line 36, after "council," to insert "concerned."

In line 39, to leave out "said."

In line 39, after "council," to insert "concerned."

In line 40, to leave out "Trustee," and to insert "Trustees."

In line 40, to leave out "trustee," and to insert "Trustees."

In line 41, to leave out "his," and to insert their."

In line 42, to leave out "name," and to insert "names."

In line 42, to leave out "Robert Bainbridge," and to insert "Frederick Cosgrove."

In page 3, to leave out lines 8 and 9.

In line 32, to leave out "said."

In line 32, after "council, "to insert concerned."

In line 39, to leave out "Robert Bainbridge," and to insert "Frederick Cosgrove."—[Mr. Philips Price.]

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Preamble

Amendment made: In page 1, line 11, at the end, to insert "amended and."—[Mr. M. Philips Price.]

Preamble, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered; read the Third time, and passed.

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.50 p.m.

The Minister of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Dalton): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
We do not often deal with one Clause Bills. They are Ministers' dreams, and amateur draftsmen's dreams too. I have the honour to present a Bill containing one operative Clause and one Clause which is the short title and citation.
It is a very simple Bill. I hope that it will not raise hostile sentiments in any part of the House. There is at present under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, a maximum grant towards such schemes in rural areas of £15 million. This Bill proposes to add to that another £30 million, making a total of £45 million. The scope of the Bill is rural areas in England and Wales; Scotland is not in on this distribution. The £15 million provided under the 1944 Act has now either all been spent or promised to local authorities in respect of approved schemes.
Therefore, unless some addition is made, as this Bill proposes, I shall he unable to make any further promises to local authorities for any further schemes, and that I should greatly regret because I am most anxious to promote schemes and give grant aid in suitable cases on a suitable scale. There are, in my view, few developments more socially and economically important than the improvement of water supplies and sewerage in the rural areas.
For my part, I look forward to the time when the countryman may live as well and have as good an opportunity of civilized existence as the townsman, and until he is furnished adequately with a piped water supply and a water carrying system with other sewerage arrangements he will be handicapped as compared with the townsman in his mode of living. That handicap, I hope, we shall be able increasingly to remove.
Since 1945, when the present Government came into power, work has been authorised to start or is in the final stages of planning to the extent of £58½ million. That total is composed as follows: £9 million of work has been actually com-


pleted with grants under the 1944 Act. Another £24 million of work has actually been started, or has been authorised to start and is on the point of starting with grants under the same Act. A further £11 million of work is in the final stages of planning, although it has not yet been authorised to start, and grants have been promised in respect of this £11 million under the same Act. There is also £6½ million of work either actually started or authorised to start in respect of which no grant is being paid.
Over and above this, there is £8 million of work actually started or authorised to start with grants from the Ministry of Agriculture. That is for water supplies to isolated farms and stands on a slightly different footing, being grant aided not under the Act I am seeking to amend, but grant aided by my right hon. Friend under the Agriculture Acts of 1940 and 1947. None the less, it is an increase in the water supply facilities for farms in rural areas. The items which I have mentioned add up to £58½ million. In addition, local authorities in rural areas are already preparing further schemes which will cost about £40 million, and it is these schemes to begin with and, I hope, also others which, if this Bill is passed, I shall be able to aid by way of grants. Unless this Bill is passed I shall not be able to do that by way of grant because, as I have said, all the available money has been promised.
Out of the £15 million provided under the 1944 Act, £3 million has been paid over to local authorities. The remaining £12 million is promised in payment to local authorities. These schemes are paid for at the completion of each scheme, and not until the completion of the scheme, if it is a relatively small one. If a large scheme, it is divided into stages and the grant is payable at intervals as each stage is completed. That is the reason why, although this £12 million has been promised, it has not yet been spent, but it will be spent pretty rapidly from now on as schemes come to completion or as stages of the larger schemes are completed.
It may be of interest to the House if I mention that grants have been promised towards 800 schemes of rural water supplies and 550 rural sewerage schemes, so the benefits have been widely spread.
The total expenditure which has been authorised since the war in rural areas for water and sewerage schemes is one-third of the total expenditure on water and sewerage schemes in the whole country. Although the rural population is only one-fifth of the total, they have received one-third of the total expenditure. The scales have been loaded heavily, deliberately and rightly, in favour of the rural areas because it was in the rural areas that these facilities were most lacking. They had been somewhat neglected in the days gone by, and I am glad to think that this Government by such Acts as this has done more for the advancement of the standards of living and civilisation in the countryside than any previous Government in our history in a comparable period.
As I have said, schemes to the value of £6½million have not been grant aided. Each scheme is considered on its merits, and the proportion of grant varies widely having regard to two factors. First, the existing level of rates in the rural area where the scheme is being carried out, and the burden imposed upon the rates if no grants were made. In the light of these considerations each case is considered separately, and the majority of the schemes, as the House will observe from the figures I have quoted, are grant aided in greater or lesser degree.
The £30 million addition which this Bill proposes to provide will be a grant contribution to about £90 million of new work. The average grant will be about one-third of the cost of new work which this Bill will enable to be undertaken. £90 million of new work will be a very substantial addition to the existing facilities. It will transform the lives of thousands of villages, many of them very remote communities, and for the women particularly it will make life much easier and the home much more comfortable and cleaner than is possible if there is lack of pipe water supplies and a sewerage system.

Major Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Gentleman said that this Bill will make the life of thousands of villages much better. He informed me, some time ago, that there were 3,117 parishes at present without water supplies in England and Wales. Will he say how many of these are going to be served by this Bill?

Mr. Dalton: I cannot give the exact figures at this stage because all the schemes have not yet come in. I shall be happy to give the hon. and gallant Gentleman the information as soon as I can get it. Broadly speaking, many thousands of villages will be assisted under these schemes—villages, hamlets and small communities. I shall be happy to give the House the information as we proceed with the authorisation of the schemes, which, of course, to be carried through require the passage of this Bill. At present, I am having to keep certain authorities waiting until we get authority from this House for this additional financial provision.
How long will it take for these schemes to be carried out? In paragraph 2 of the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum is a statement to the effect that
At the present rate of progress it is estimated that the total expenditure towards which grant will he payable will be of the order of £90 million spread over a period of 7 years.
At this particular stage in the history of the world and of this country there are many uncertainties, and how quickly this money can be spent is dependent principally on the following factors. First, it depends on how quickly local authorities can complete their schemes. Some local authorities are very much quicker than others. I shall do all I can through my Department and through my advisers to give assistance to local authorities, who may be in difficulty as to the details of a scheme.
Secondly, there is the question of how much labour and materials will be available in the different areas. These will vary considerably according to the other claims upon the labour force. The House may be interested to know that taking the country as a whole we have a labour force of over 19,000 engaged on water and sewage works as compared with less than 10,000 in 1947. We have, therefore, in broad figures, doubled the labour force in the last three and a half years. That is a solid achievement, and I hope that the labour now working on these schemes will be able to continue to work there without undue difficulty of organisation.
With regard to materials, we must frankly confess that some materials are bound to be difficult. Spun iron pipes

and asbestos cement pipes may be difficult and deliveries long. Here, again, I shall do my utmost to assist the local authorities concerned, and I will approach colleagues of mine in the Government, who are able departmentally to help us. It would be idle not to admit that the re-armament programme will impose certain extended delivery dates in some cases, but we will do our best.
Finally, the speed of the carrying out of the programme will depend on how much money will be available. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have agreed that this form of expenditure shall be stabilised from year to year. In the last calendar year, the total expenditure on water and sewerage, including the towns—for I am not now speaking solely of the rural areas—was in the order of £25 million. My right hon. Friend and I have agreed that the same amount should be available this year and next year, so that we shall stabilise for a three year period at approximately £25 million.

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: Do these figures include Scotland, or are they only for England and Wales?

Mr. Dalton: It is only for England and Wales. Scotland is not in on this.

Lady Megan Lloyd George: As a special allocation was made for Scotland in the 1945 Act, will the right hon. Gentleman consider in this Act making. a special allocation for Wales where, according to the facts, the need is greatest?

Mr. Dalton: If the noble Lady and others of my Welsh friends will show me the need for special consideration in some parts of Wales, I will do my best to give those places a high priority. I should not think it convenient from the point of view of Wales to make a definite allocation at this stage. The purpose of this Measure is to do the most we can where the need is greatest. I know there are many parts of rural Wales which were terribly neglected by previous administrations, and where we have an opportunity to put that right I shall be very happy to co-operate with the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) and other Members from Wales in moving to that end.
These are the three factors that will determine the rate of our progress—the speed with which the local authorities can


complete their plans; the availability of labour and materials; and the availability of finance. As I have said, we have stabilised this expenditure over three years in view of the admitted great urgency and national importance, and it will be my aim to press forward as best I can in carrying out this most vital work.

8.5 p.m.

Major Sir Thomas Dugdale: In introducing this small but very important Bill, the Minister of Local Government and Planning has given the House a broad picture of the condition of our rural water supply and sewerage schemes at the present time. I am sorry that in his opening remarks he sought to talk about the lack of provisions by previous administrations. It will be agreed on all sides of the House that we should welcome this Bill as a necessary step forward in bringing piped water to the rural areas. In view, however, of the Minister's remarks, I must put on record what has gone before. I hope that I shall not weary the House with these details, but I must draw the Government's attention to the fact that a very great deal was done by my right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House when they were responsible for the Government of this country. I want only to recall one or two facts, and I will give them to the House without argument or repetition.
The House will remember that the first Act passed about water undertakings was as far back as Disraeli's time—the great Public Health Act, 1875. He was the first person to think of this problem. Then came the Local Government Act, 1929, which was a Conservative Administration's Act. The House will recollect that under that Act, for the first time, rural district councils were empowered to contribute from the general rate towards the cost of water supply schemes for individual parishes. Before that Act, each parish had to bear the cost of its own scheme. There were many individuals throughout the country who had tried in rural areas to bring water supplies to their own particular districts, but it was not until 1929 that a rural district council could meet the charge through a general rate.
Then came the Rural Water Supply Act, 1934, which my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove

(Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) will no doubt remember. It was the first Measure to make Treasury grants to the extent of£1million for rural water schemes on the same basis as the later Act of 1944. It is interesting that, as a result of that Act. during the succeeding five years schemes to a total of more than £7 million were carried out in about a quarter of the parishes in England and Wales, and over 500,000 rural dwellers were supplied with piped water supply.
Following that, a Conservative Parliament—although I admit it was under Coalition Government—passed the two Agricultural (Miscellaneous Provisions) Acts of 1940 and 1943 under which grants are still being given to farmers of up to 50 per cent. of the cost of providing piped supplies. These Acts were followed by the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944.
I believe I have now said enough for the House to appreciate the great part played by my right hon. and hon. Friends in days gone by which has resulted in Britain possessing the best water supply in the world. These are facts which the House ought to recollect. Nevertheless, I am the first to agree that there is more to be done, and that is why we welcome the Bill.
I must now ask the Government to clear their minds about their own attitude towards these matters during the last six years. During those years the Government have made a habit of having new thoughts about water, and I believe that these new thoughts, changing alternately with the years like the ebb and flow of the tide, have had much to do with the rather slow progress made under the 1944 Act. I want to remind the House of a few statements made by the Government about water. The first one which comes to mind is the statement in May, 1947, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) when advising his party conference at Margate not to pass a resolution for the nationalisation of water. We may now agree wholeheartedly with what he said. His words were:
 You can alter the machinery of Government as much as you like: you can carry this resolution and alter that Act of Parliament, and you would not get a single drop more water.
In 1949, when the party supporting the Government produced the document,


"Labour Believes in Britain," the idea of a national water grid was introduced. The document read:
Labour proposes that water supply should now become a wholly public responsibility under public ownership. Eventually a national water grid will bring plentiful water into every rural and urban area.
Later in 1949 there must have been second thoughts about the water grid. In February, 1950, there was no mention at all of the water grid in the Government's election manifesto, no doubt as a result of advice from various experts on the problem. We were told:
Labour therefore proposes that water supply should become a wholly public responsibility so that as soon as possible plentiful water will be brought into every rural area.
A month later—in March, 1950, after the General Election—the Government announced their policy in the Gracious Speech. During that month their policy had taken a very sharp turn and had been watered down considerably. In the Gracious Speech we had this passage:
The improvement of water supplies, particularly in rural areas, will continue to occupy the attention of My Ministers and preparatory steps will be taken with a view to the introduction of legislation as soon as circumstances permit.
We have now reached the present time, and I want to ask the Government whether this Bill is the legislation for which preparatory steps have been taken for 15 months? Can we now—this is the important matter—disregard all previous statements that have been made by Members of the Government since 1947? We ought to have an answer to that, because upon the answer will depend the future action of the Minister, who, I am confident, has every intention of succeed-inn in his policy.
To turn to the administration of the 1944 Act, up to 31st May the Government had spent only £3,250,000 although grants totalling nearly £15,500,000 had been promised, representing the whole of the grant authorised by the original Act. According to my arithmetic, which the Government have better means of checking than I have, at this rate of progress it will take 30 years to spend the £15 million authorised in the original Act. That is difficult to marry with the Explanatory Memorandum to this Bill referred to by the Minister, if this sentence is true:

At the present rate of progress it is estimated that the total expenditure towards which grant will be payable will he of the order of ninety million pounds spread over a period of seven years.
I hope that the Minister who replies to this debate will inform the House what steps the Government propose to take to speed up the administrative machine to achieve the result which we should all like to see. I was glad to hear the Minister say that it had been agreed between himself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the form of expenditure is to be stabilised over the next period of years. That will mean that he will have a free hand and be able to make good progress. Even so, I am at a loss to understand how he hopes to be able to get such a quick advance compared with the pace of the last 10 years.
I now want to make a few remarks about costs. Again I think it will be agreed that the development of piped water supplies and sewerage schemes in rural areas depends largely on the necessary finance being forthcoming. The Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, was designed specially to remedy this difficulty, but since then the progress has admittedly been slow and the cost of the necessary materials has been rising continually, which has made it extremely difficult for all concerned.
I want to give an example to the House of the kind of rise that has taken place between 1945 and today in the materials necessary to develop the water and sewerage schemes. According to my information a 6 inch cast-iron pipe which cost 10s. 1d. a yard in 1945 costs 13s. 2d. a yard today. That is a considerable increase when dealing with big schemes. Lead, an essential commodity in sewerage work and water work of any sort, has gone up from £32 10s. a ton in 1945 to £160 a ton today. Solder has gone up from £129 10s. in 1945 to £495 10s. a ton today.
I have given those examples to the House for a specific purpose. In certain cases there have been endless delays in approving schemes put forward by rural district councils because the former Minister of Health required the schemes to be so comprehensive. If the present Minister got up now and said, "Give me one definite example," I could not, because a definite example is hard to get. However, one has heard in different parts


of the country of difficulties because of prolonged negotiations. What has happened as a result? Because the Minister asked for comprehensive schemes in those days and because of rising costs during the period of negotiation, some schemes have had to be entirely recast. That re-casting of the original schemes has caused further delay, during which time costs have again gone up. In many instances the local authorities or others responsible for first introducing a scheme have found themselves in an extremely difficult financial position.
Added to these difficulties of costs, my right hon. and right hon. Friends hold the view that the Government during recent years have never really given adequate and necessary priority to the purchase of essential materials. I admit that that is open to argument and is open for the Government to answer, but our opinion has been that by and large there has been delay. I admit, however, that there have been many difficulties in giving essential priorities for materials to enable these schemes to go forward on their original estimates.
With all those facts before us, however desirable it may be to encourage comprehensive schemes, I hope that the Minister of Local Government and Planning will in future rely to a far greater extent than his predecessors have done on the judgment of local people as to which schemes, or which sections of comprehensive schemes, should come first. If it is not possible to authorise a great comprehensive scheme, then it ought to be possible to authorise a section of a comprehensive scheme which can eventually be linked up. I hope the Minister will bear all this carefully in mind in the administration of the new sum of money for which, I hope, the House will vote at the end of our debate on the Bill.
I should like for a moment to refer to Wales. The noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) made an interruption during the Minister's speech. I have made some research into this matter and should like to refer the Minister to a memorandum, which I expect he will have read, published by the Council for Wales and Monmouth last October. Some most disquieting figures are given of the number of inhabited houses in Wales that are still without a

piped water supply. Paragraph 143 in fact uses these words:
There can he no doubt that…the absence of adequate water supplies had been a limiting factor of great importance in the general improvement in the conditions of living in the rural areas, and in the development of Welsh agriculture.
I hope that the Minister will pay particular attention to the difficult position in Wales as a result of these inadequate water supplies. I am prepared to accept the rebuke that other Governments of the past have not done all that they should have done in Wales to provide a better supply of water; but now that we are all trying to get a good water supply for this last small percentage of our population. particular attention should be paid to Wales.
The Minister said that Scotland was not included in the Bill, but the 1944 Act applied to the whole of Great Britain and set aside, I think, an additional £6¼ million for Scotland. I understand that the whole of this sum has now been promised to Scottish local authorities, although only about £500,000 has so far been paid over. We should like to know whether these figures are correct and whether it is the Government's intention to introduce separate legislation for Scotland. We all agree that Scotland, as well as other parts of Great Britain, ought to take part in any future development of water supplies.
I said earlier that Britain has the best water supply system in the world and a greater proportion of houses supplied with piped water than any other country. The population without a piped water supply. is in the neighbourhood of 5 per cent. to 7 per cent. of the whole but, I believe it still true that even today about one-third of those who live in country districts are without a piped supply. This position must be improved.
When Minister of Health, Mr. Willink, introduced the original Act in 1944. He referred to it as a partnership between the State and the local and county ratepayers and this partnership was designed to solve this problem. We agreed then with his proposals and we agree with them now. The Government, after many contrary proposals and excursions in this field, have today brought before the House legislation in support of Mr. Willink's original Act. As they have cleared their minds of the mirage of


nationalisation, my hon. and right hon. Friends will support the passage of this Bill through the House of Commons.

8.27 p.m.

Mr. Dye: I was rather interested in the opening remarks of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Dugdale) when he referred to one or two sentences of my right hon. Friend in which he mentioned some of the work which had been left undone in previous years and said that that was the reason he must make some reference to what Tory Governments had done in the past. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Baronet on having a brief already prepared on the basis of expecting my right hon. Friend to make some reference to this matter. He gave us a long list of Measures and went on to refer to what had been done by the Labour Government since 1945. Of course, there is one thing he cannot do, and that is prove that at any other period in the history of our country so many water and sewerage schemes have been carried out in rural areas as during the past few years.
It has been my lot, as a county councillor and as a rural district councillor, to take part in the preparation of some of those schemes, for it is by the co-operation of the county councils with the district councils in this matter that much good work has been done. The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to the administrative machine dealing with this matter holding up or deferring the schemes, but I should have thought that from his knowledge of the situation he would have agreed that it is not so much the administators as the water engineers who are insufficient to cope with the job.
When the war ended in 1945, there was this great task of supplying such a large part of rural England and Wales with a piped water supply, but there was not at hand a large skilled personnel of water engineers who straight away could start on the task, let alone take up schemes which had been prepared in the years before the war. I well remember my experience on the district council when the water engineers who were engaged to prepare a scheme for Swaffham Rural District brought their outline of the scheme and at the first meeting we were able to tear it to pieces

because it was not based on a knowledge of the area, as the engineers had not sufficient knowledge. It was a mere outline, and to hammer out a satisfactory scheme in a small rural district of about 8,000 population took the water engineers, the county council's advisers and the engineers of the Ministry of Health three or four years. There was not the knowledge of where the water was, or the levels or any other matter. We had to start from scratch. That was the position over the greater part of Norfolk, which was one of the counties which had perhaps the greatest need in respect of rural water supplies.
The hon. Baronet has referred to the cost, and the rising cost, of these schemes. I suppose that is an outstanding factor, but how much cheaper it would have been in those years when we had so many unemployed, when water engineers were leaving the country for other countries, seeking work, and when the people who made water pipes were also unemployed. That was the great neglect of rural England—in those years between the wars.
It is not only a question of a domestic water supply. We must have an adequate water supply for agricultural purposes. The hon. Baronet has scarcely mentioned that in any of his speeches. Yet if we are to have a pure and abundant milk supply there must be an adequate and pure water supply. Not only must we have that adequate supply for the cows themselves. The greatest difficulty which farmers are still experiencing in this country is to get men to go with their families and live in some of these places where there is no piped water supply and no electricity.
The hon. Baronet has referred not only to the cost of materials but to the rising cost of the schemes themselves. That is true of every development in rural England. If one takes, for example, the position about electricity, in the Eastern Counties four-fifths of the possible consumers of electricity are already connected to a supply and are receiving electricity; but the cost of developing electricity in order that the other one-fifth may have a supply would be as great as for the four-fifths who are already receiving it. The further one goes into the more rural areas, the


greater is the capital cost to supply a given number of people.
Therefore, I am very glad indeed that the Government have decided to continue this good work. After all, if the figures which my right hon. Friend has given to us mean anything, they mean that over the whole country, rural and industrial alike, the estimated expenditure for these purposes per year will be £25 million. But he has indicated that this Bill will enable £90 million to be spent in rural areas in seven years, which indicates that half of the total expenditure will take place in rural districts.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Lindgren): Between a third and a half.

Mr. Dye: According to the figures which have been given it is nearer a half, but if we take the figure as a third, I ask hon. Members opposite when ever in the history of this country under Conservative Governments has even a third of the capital expenditure on water and sewerage schemes taken place in the country districts. Of course it has not. If we take the past years, it would be difficult to show that 3 per cent. of the whole expenditure in any one area was for the benefit of rural districts and of people who live in them. So I am very glad indeed that the Government have made this decision and can indicate to all concerned that we must go ahead at the rate at which we are spending money for rural water and sewerage schemes.
I am glad that the Government have been able to get a more practical outlook on this problem now than that which they adopted five or six years ago. There were some people who were then advising the Government that what was required was large comprehensive schemes with one source supplying an enormous area; but, to my knowledge, in recent years they have been agreeing to small village schemes and paying the grant on them, in some cases more than one-third of the capital loss. That is taking place, and it has arisen out of the greater knowledge which has been acquired on these matters. It was a very good thing that the Government did take the plunge and engage all the water engineers that they could on this task as early as possible.
Now experience has shown us how we can get the greatest development with the least amount of capital at the present time. This is a more practical outlook. I am glad that the Government are prepared to take this view and urge on local authorities the need to develop local sources to meet the important requirements, and so to develop their network of mains that, as time goes on, they can be linked up. There is a doubt about how long many of these local sources will last. Therefore, if in the planning of these schemes they are developed in such a way that in the course of time they can be linked up, then, if we are forced back on certain areas where there is a greater reserve of water, there may not need to be a great deal of alteration in the schemes.
That is the basis on which we are proceeding in Norfolk. I am glad that the Government have agreed, after consultation between the Ministry and the county and district councils, that this kind of development should take place. We have still a very big problem to solve, because in 1945 no fewer than 377 of our villages were without a piped water supply. Many of the others were only partially supplied. That meant that the greater part of the county was without a piped water supply. The development of a water supply both to villages and to outlying farms is an expensive business, but when we come also to develop sewerage schemes for the villages, there is an even greater expense.
Unfortunately, because of the condition of many of the sewerage works in urban areas, money cannot be spent on providing sewerage schemes in the villages. Sooner or later, if we have a piped water supply in the villages, we must also have a sewerage scheme; otherwise, we shall only create another problem. I think the Government ought to look more closely into this problem. How can we, within the time at our disposal, find a solution to it, because we cannot go on for long with a piped water supply and yet have in villages houses with water closets. The Acts which all wise Conservative Governments placed on the Statute Book in the past are now a hindrance in this respect, in so far as they deal with the sanitary conveniences in domestic dwellings.
In most cases, in planning houses, the outlets of the sewerage pipes which are put in the ground by law are too deep to enable small septic tanks to work. This is a problem which we have to face, because, if we are to have a septic tank operating for one house or a small group of houses, the effluent from it, if it is to be soaked away in the neighbourhood in the soil, must not be carried at a greater depth than 18 inches, because that is the specified depth at which the pipes from the house must be laid.
I have had some experience with council houses in this matter, and I have seen where scheme after scheme of house development has provided for septic tanks, but within a year of their construction they began to cause trouble. These septic tanks have been a source of trouble, and in rural districts we are now having to provide specially equipped lorries to go round emptying these tanks very frequently in order to prevent them from becoming a nuisance. There must be something wrong about their construction. I have tried in my own case to avoid this difficulty, because, in building a house, I have instructed the builders to put in the septic tank first and then to situate the house at such a level that it was able to work efficiently. In the case of council schemes, they have gone to work the other way round, building the house first and then dealing as best they could with the problem of the disposal of the sewage effluent.
I ask my hon. Friend whether he cannot get his experts to go into this problem of the disposal of the sewage effluent from council houses, and, indeed, from; villages, where the nature of the soil would enable it to be soaked away in the soil without any damage to water supplies. I am sure that there is a field for investigation here, in which, in the course of the next two years, if we can overcome the difficulty and solve this problem, we can save millions of pounds and at the same time enable people in rural districts to have the advantages of a water-borne sewerage system. I therefore ask the Government more closely to investigate this problem in rural areas, both in relation to single houses and groups of houses and villages, because I have seen schemes produced by engineers which have cost far more than the total value of the village before the war.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend in promoting this Measure and in indicating to the people who live in rural districts that they can go ahead with confidence in their schemes for water supply and sewage disposal, and I hope that the Government will stick to the programme laid down to the House this afternoon.

8.45 p.m.

Commander Maitland: The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye) dealt with a very important factor in the situation when he discussed the question of sewerage. I do not think it is always fully appreciated that for a water supply to be really efficient there must be a piped water sewerage scheme as well. That raises an important point. Unfortunately, there are some large areas in this country, most of which seem to be in my constituency, which have no water at all. Though I fully appreciate the importance of sewerage, I would impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the absolute necessity of having a water supply first. In other words, if he has to choose between the two demands when there is only a limited supply of money he should place the emphasis on the provision of the water supply first.
In listening to the paeans of praise by the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West, which I suppose, he had to make about what the Government have done, I think he should be reminded that it is really a Bill introduced by a Conservative Minister which is the basis of the Bill we are discussing this afternoon. I was astonished when he said that he was glad the Government had decided to go ahead with this scheme. Did he think they were not going ahead with it? What an astonishing thing for a supporter of the Government to say. It never occurred to the Opposition, even with the greatest malevolence we can produce, to suggest that.
There was a very ominous moment in the House last Thursday when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us—and this is one of the points I particularly want the Government to answer—that so far as civil engineering and similar matters were concerned we should have to go a great deal slower than in the past. But here we are, a few days later, giving the Government £45 million with which to go ahead with this scheme. Although the


right hon. Gentleman touched on this point, I think that when winding up the debate the Parliamentary Secretary ought to give us some better guarantee that in this matter, which is so absolutely vital to country districts, he will do his best to get his full whack. In his speech on Thursday, the Chancellor said:
Investment in the health services, on some local government services, and on university buildings will have to be less."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st June, 1951; Vol. 489, c. 719.]
In the part of the world in which I live we feel that we have waited quite long enough for a piped water supply. Hon. Members of this House are always allowed to make special pleas for their constituents, because that, after all, is what we are sent here to do. I was much encouraged when the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to an interruption by the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George), said he would give personal attention to her problem. I, too, shall be coming along for personal attention, and I shall send the right hon. Gentleman's speech to my local authorities, and, no doubt, they will be coming to him and expecting the help he promised.
There are three very small points to which I wish particularly to draw his attention. In his speech he mentioned the question of agricultural water supply. From my own personal experience of managing an estate, I have found that one of the difficulties, when there is a grant half of which comes from one source and half from another, is that it often happens that one cannot make out a very good case either completely agriculturally or completely domestically, but that when the two are taken together one can make out quite a good case. I understand his Departmental difficulties but I urge the right hon. Gentleman to see whether there cannot be a clearer decision in these cases where the grant comes from two sources of supply.
I also wish to stress something he himself mentioned, and that is the long delays that occur between the preparation of a scheme, its approval and the time that work begins on it. These delays often prevent work being carried out on schemes which might have been introduced locally in country districts. I was interested in what the hon. Member for

Norfolk, South-West, said about local schemes. I remember going to a local authority about five years ago as an individual who wanted a water supply. I was told, "You will get the water in about four years' time." I went again a short time ago and they said, "Yes, we think you will get the water in about four years' time." That is happening all over the country.

Mr. Dye: No.

Commander Maitland: Yes, that is happening all over the country in my part of the world. I quite understand the economic difficulties we have run into under this Government. An owner-occupier or owner who might instal a small scheme himself does not do so because he knows the water supply is coming and then he is delayed more and more. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to see if he can give instructions to the water undertakers that wherever possible they should give firm dates for the completion of their schemes. This makes a tremendous difference when one is trying to run one's own farm, for if one knows that one has to wait six years or more it is just as well to put in a scheme of one's own.
Another point which is a very wide one and should give us considerable matter for thought is whether we have enough water in this country. There is considerable anxiety in the minds of some of our leading water engineers and specialists on this subject whether there is enough water all the time all the year round to supply all the districts in this country. I live in a part of the world where we are a long way from the water supply, and we are having very great difficulty in getting the water from the various sources after we have arranged our schemes.
I know the Minister has an advisory committee on this particular question. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to devote a few moments of his reply to telling us whether he is entirely satisfied about the water supply in this country. I must admit that after last winter it seems a ludicrous question, but he knows as well as I do that there is a real need for an inquiry of that sort. I want to impress upon the Minister the vital necessity for water. I think he is doing his best, but I ask him to put party politics on one side and give us the water.

8.54 p.m.

Mr. Mitchison: This is a subject on which I think we can congratulate both my right hon. Friend and his hon. Friend and their predecessors in office most sincerely. It was suggested that a great deal had been done before the war. If a great deal was done, then the state of affairs when somebody began doing something must indeed have been parlous. Whatever Disraeli thought about a hundred years ago and successive Conservative Governments contrived to think about the matter, the facts are as stated in 1939 by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot)—that among the rural parishes in England very nearly one-third had no piped water supply and the proportion in Wales was very much the same.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman included for the purposes of that answer among parishes which had a water supply not only those which actually possessed one, but those which proposed to have one and were taking steps to get one. Moreover, I am sure the House will appreciate that if a parish has a piped water supply it by no means follows that all the houses or even all the groups of houses in that parish are going to get water. I call the state of affairs disclosed by that answer a disgrace to a country and a disgrace to successive Governments which had claimed to do well for rural communities.
There can be few greater hardships than to have to rely, year in and year out, in health and in sickness, in strength or in old age, on a water supply which may come from the village pump, frequently out of order, at a distance which may amount to half a mile or more. I do not want to stress the matter. Anyone who knows the countryside must appreciate what that means to the people who live in it, and its effect in waste of time for that much troubled person, the housewife, is quite incredible. Go and talk, as I am sure we have all done, to any working woman living in a village, and it will not take long for any of us to find out what it really means to her to have water brought into the house—and plenty of water.
That was the picture before the war. Since the war the progress has been quite remarkable. Most of the figures were given by my right hon. Friend, and I would add only one point in answer

to the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Dugdale), who thought that at this rate of progress it would take a very long time to use the money which, we hope, is now about to be supplied. The short answer to that is that the rate of progress has accelerated remarkably. Perhaps the clearest figures I can give are these: as regards rural supplies, up to the end of March, 1948, since the end of the war, 847 schemes to a total of £3.8 million had been authorised, and in the succeeding year very nearly the same number, 834 schemes, to a total of nearly double the amount, £6.1 million, were authorised.

Mr. Hutchinson: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman able to tell the House how many schemes were completed in the two years to which he has referred?

Mr. Mitchison: If the hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me to finish my sentence he will, I hope, appreciate the point of the observation I am making, which is this. Those figures indicate quite clearly that the rate at which authorisation was proceeding was far greater from about March, 1948, than it had been in the previous period. There is no mystery about the figures. They are to be found in the last published report of the Ministry of Health, and it is natural enough that when those figures are given in the last published report of the Ministry they cannot be accompanied by the figures for which the hon. and learned Gentleman just asked. They illustrate quite clearly the point I make, that the rate of progress, both in authorisation and in work, has accelerated quite remarkably during the last two years.
I have a very interesting local experience of it with which I propose to trouble the House for a moment. Northamptonshire is a very dry and troublesome county from the point of view of water supply. In my constituency there are two rural districts. One of them has not the same acute difficulty in getting water out of the ground as exists in the other area; it is not naturally as dry. When I came to this place in 1945 the majority of the villages in that rural district not only had no piped water supply but had never had one and had no prospect of getting one. That was the position.
As a result of real collaboration and energy both on the part of Whitehall—


if I may so describe my right hon. and hon. Friends—on the one hand and of the local authority on the other hand—much the same sort of local authority as that which existed there before, but stimulated this time from Whitehall—pipe after pipe has been laid along the roads and a great majority—I have not the exact number—of those villages have a proper piped water supply for the first time in centuries.
That is, of course, local effort in the sense that it is effort within one rural district. But the other rural district had a much harder task because they did not have the water in their own district. They had practically flung their hands in, but they were rescued, again, by an act of this Government, which seems to me to be the merest common sense, and common sense of a very promising order. A Joint County Water Board was set up to deal with the position in Northamptonshire, and the Board took over some works which were already in contemplation at a place called Pitsford to supply water on a large scale.
Do not let us push local enterprise too far. There are some things it can do and some things it cannot do, and if the supply of water in the last-mentioned rural district and any other similar area, not only in Northamptonshire but throughout the country, is to be left to rural district councils they simply cannot do it and they will not do it. Both the rural district councils and bodies of a more general character, such as the Joint County Water Board or even some extension of it, will be required if we are to provide a proper water supply all over the country.
I want to make one point to my right hon. Friend, if I may. When those two bodies exist side by side I suggest that it is necessary to be quite clear that the local authority are not relieved of all their responsibilities by the existence of a Joint County Water Board, but that on the contrary they still retain certain responsibilities under the present law and cannot pass everything off on the grounds that it is the business of the Joint County Water Board. That is a real point which needs consideration and possibly some elucidation.
It has been said by one hon. Member opposite—and I thoroughly agree—that

we can by no means be certain that there is enough water in the country. The reason is that the demand for water in country cottages has been stimulated immensely by the possibility of getting it. The consumption of water has gone up in the towns and in the countryside both for domestic and for other purposes, and although, of course, one has every wish to obviate waste—and there has been a recent inquiry for that purpose—yet I cannot help feeling that if we were to examine the consumption of water we should still find that there was room for a good deal more development not only by way of piped water supply but by way of its use within the houses. Incidentally, I hope that the provisions for obliging landlords of country cottages to take water into the cottages when it is available may be simplified a little, and strengthened and enlarged, in some future Bill.
Therefore, I start from the assumption that for domestic purposes alone there is likely to be an increase in the use of water. Then there comes the question, of course, of the use of water in rural areas for industrial and agricultural purposes. I do not see how we are going to get a proper life in rural communities unless we can have much more light industry in the countryside than we have at present. I think there is general agreement about that.
If we develop rural industries, through the extension of the blacksmiths' activities, and all the rest of it, on the one side, and, on the other side, by industrialists putting small factories into the countryside, as they often do in Northamptonshire, then, if that is done, that in turn will largely increase the need of water in the countryside. So we come to the conclusion, as I say, that we shall have to have not only a national survey and a central advisory body, but probably something more for dealing wholesale with water supplies than we have at present. I feel that in one form or another that is generally recognised by those who have knowledge of this subject.
That is all I wanted to say in general, but I want to make one short and special plea, encouraged by what my right hon. Friend has said. Let me first of all say this to him. It is perfectly true that he and his predecessor have been exceedingly helpful to local authorities. Where there


have been delays in dealing with any applications, in my experience—and I have had a good deal on this particular point—they have not been large, and if the Ministry's attention has been called to them they have been quickly rectified. As regards the delivery of pipes and other materials, an appeal to the Ministry has usually led to very marked acceleration of delivery. As regards cost, it is, perhaps, significant that the British Waterworks Association gives the cost of water as up by only 45 per cent. since pre-war, and that is hardly consistent with the somewhat extravagant suggestions made tonight about the increased cost of waterworks.
The point I wish to make is in connection with isolated houses and isolated groups of houses. They are very often incapable of being supplied with a piped water supply at an economic cost or anything near it. Railway cottages are a very common instance. They were built by the old railway companies a great many years ago. There was no, proper water supply then. It can be got now; but it is an expensive business. I suggest that that sort of difficulty ought to be a particular public responsibility, and that in that, as in wider respects, we ought to try to level the cost. I do not say absolutely; but I suggest that we go as far as we can towards trying to level the cost of water between the fortunate and the unfortunate. I hope that matter will receive the sympathetic consideration of the Minister and all others concerned.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Edgar Granville: I understand that the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond, Yorks. (Sir T. Dugdale), and his hon. Friends do not intend to divide the House on this Bill and therefore we can all of us make constituency speeches. I do not altogether blame the hon. and gallant Baronet for going back a little into the past. The right hon. Gentleman made some play with it, and the hon. Baronet was, I think, entitled to say that Mr. Willink, who was Minister of Health in 1944, was responsible for introducing into this House the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act. I understand, however, that it was a Coalition Government at that time, and all the parties in that Government agreed to that particular Measure.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George)

will be glad of the hon. and gallant Baronet's support when he made special claim for the particular problems of Wales. I think that the hon. and gallant Baronet was also speaking for a great number of hon. Members who sit for rural constituencies when he tried to put his finger on what is the real cause of administrative delay. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give attention to this aspect of the matter.
I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who made an interesting speech, and gave us an illustration of what is happening in Northamptonshire. I do not think that we ought to be complacent. We have a long way yet to go. As the hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland) said, when he was giving an illustration from his constituency, this is still a very serious and urgent problem. We have already had extremely dry weather in parts of East Anglia, and there will be scores of people there carrying water this week and next week. Many of the wives of the cottagers will be walking a mile or two to carry water every day in many of the villages and hamlets, as the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye) knows very well. Parts of Suffolk will also be dependent more or less on the drainage from the roads and the skimmings of the ponds for their water supply. This is at a time when we are not yet in a state, of drought.
I hope that with the general measure of agreement which this debate has produced, the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will understand that this is a serious and extremely urgent problem in parts of East Anglia. I was told last week of people who were having to use water from the ponds and the spectacle of housewives having to boil water and live in primitive conditions is something which should stir any Government to take extremely radical measures. People in these parts are still being subject to epidemics and, although much progress has been made, many of the people in the scattered districts where they have not yet got piped water supplies or even an efficient party water supply by the local authority are beginning to give up hope that they will ever get decent conditions in which to live.
This Bill empowers the Treasury to spend another £30 million and, as I read the Explanatory Memorandum, only £3 million of the previous amount under the 1944 Act has in fact been spent by the Treasury, which reinforces the point made by the hon. and learned Baronet that there must be some bottleneck and some delay somewhere which is preventing the schemes from proceeding at the pace which I think this House desires.
This new expenditure of £30 million is subject to a rather serious proviso, according to the Explanatory Memorandum, namely, that it is subject to the considerations of the capital investment programme. I venture to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether that means that this particular form of expenditure is to suffer if we are short of pipes, materials and various kinds of labour. Is there to be a priority system for the allocation of these materials and labour which may be in short supply, because this is in every sense an extremely urgent problem?
As the right hon. Gentleman the, Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said in one of his recent speeches, the morale of the whole population is of vital importance, and in pleading for special areas in this matter, I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary that large parts of East Anglia, where so much is a defence area at present and houses very important squadrons which are there for specific purposes, are in need of water supplies. One of the difficulties we had to contend with during the war was a lack of a piped supply system. I hope the Minister of Local Government and Planning is going to stand up to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and will see that we get a fair allocation of these particular materials which are in short supply owing to the, demands of re-armament.
We have passed a number of these Bills, under which the general onus and responsibility is placed upon the local authority, but like the hon. and learned Member for Kettering I am a little disturbed about local authorities and local undertakings being given the entire powers. The party opposite stand generally in favour of public ownership of water. In their 1949 programme they made a specific declaration about it. The Women's Institutes in this country have

made a useful examination of this subject, and have come out in favour of public ownership. My own party is in favour of public ownership and my hon. Friend the Member for Merioneth (Mr. Emrys Roberts), in the last debate we had on this subject, made our position absolutely clear. We are prepared to support any scheme of that sort, and I hope that the Government have not closed their mind to this aspect of the problem.
The marginal problem in this matter has been illustrated by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering, when he spoke about the position in Northamptonshire, where one area has water and another beside it has not. Some kind of co-ordinating body is required. There may be a local authority which, because of its low rateable return or because local opinion is opposed to the scheme or because of specific difficulty. finds itself unable to avail itself of the various subsidies which have been offered by successive Governments.
What is to be done in the case of a council of that sort? Where is the power given in any of these Measures to go to that council and say, "You have to begin a scheme and we are prepared to recommend that you should have the following grants." Co-ordination is needed particularly in the marginal areas, and I sincerely hope that the Government have not closed their mind to some form of public ownership and some co-ordination upon a regional basis. The regional board would co-ordinate schemes, and initiate schemes if local authorities were reluctant to do so.
There is a tremendous back-log in this matter. I pay my tribute to the Government and their predecessors for the work which has already been done in the country. We see signs that the roads have been dug up and that a piped water supply is being provided. Notwithstanding the tremendous demands of rearmament, I hope the Minister will not forget to fight for priority for the raw materials and labour for this development. I hope that he will announce at some future date that it is the Government's intention to go ahead either with a scheme of public ownership or with a scheme which will entail supervision at a regional or national level.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hutchinson: ought to be one of those agreeable occasions when we can support the proposals which the Minister has brought before the House. We can do that for the very good reason that all the Minister proposes to do is to stoke up or refuel the machine which we created about 16 years ago. It was a pity that the right hon. Gentleman allowed himself some disparaging comments on his predecessors. I do not in the least object to his putting in a word for his party when he can—we all do that. My objection to what he said was that he was entirely mistaken.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) referred to the number of parishes without a piped supply in 1939, but he did not tell the House that between 1914 and 1939 between 5,000 and 6,000 parishes were provided with a piped supply for the first time. Furthermore, if the necessary adjustment is made in the levels of costs between the pre-war and post-war periods, the amount of new works for rural water supplies carried out by the Conservative Government under the 1934 Act, between 1934 and 1939, very much exceeds what the present Government have been able to do during the last six years.

Lindgren: >indicated dissent.

Mr. Hutchinson: I see the Parliamentary Secretary shaking his head, but works of this sort today cost two or three times what they cost before the war, and if we make the necessary adjustment for that, the £7½ million worth of works completed—not promised, but completed —between 1934 and 1939, to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks. (Sir T. Dugdale) referred, far exceeds anything which the present Government have succeeded in doing during the last six years.
I listened, as I always do, with particular interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye), and with added interest because I believe that I can tell him why we cannot get enough competent water engineers. It is impossible to induce young engineers to go into water engineering whilst water is under the threat of nationalisation. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the large comprehensive schemes, about

which his party has spoken so often, are not the best way of providing a rural community with water. In most rural areas the water is there. It is much easier to get it now than it used to be, because modern machinery is much more effective than the machinery which had to be used 20 years ago. In an area like Norfolk, where the population is sparse and the conditions of water supply are thus especially difficult, I agree that small localised schemes are much more likely to produce results than the larger regional schemes to which my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) referred.
It is true that in the past the cost of rural water supplies has been one of the principal obstacles to the extension of piped supplies into rural areas. Since the Act of 1944, however, a much more formidable obstacle has been the low priority which the Government have given to water supplies. They have consistently put the other public services, particularly electricity, ahead of water supplies.
In the capital investment programme for 1950, which is the last year for which figures are available, water and sewerage received an allocation of only £19.5 million. Electricity in the same year received £113 million, afterwards reduced to £102 million. So that electricity had about five times the priority given to water and sewerage. The £19.5 million for water and sewerage includes not only rural water supplies but the water schemes that are beinng carried out in urban areas as well. Gas in that year had more than water, £32 million. The story was the same in each of the two preceding years. In 1949 water had £19.5 million, electricity £104 million and gas £30 million. And so it was in 1948.
These allocations—I am speaking now of 1950 when water supplies received £19.5 million—were made in a year when the local authorities had submitted schemes for rural water supplies alone approaching £100 million—five times in excess of the allocation made to them in the capital investment programme. It is small wonder that the rate of progress of rural water supply since 1945 has been deplorably slow.
The Government must choose between rural water supplies and the other public services. It is no good telling people


in rural areas that it is the fault of the local authorities or that nationalisation will bring the water they want, or that the wicked Tories were to blame. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear. It is no good telling people that kind of thing unless the Government are prepared to give the water supply industry the priorities necessary to enable it to do its job. The Government have consistently preferred electricity in the towns to water in the country.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether the Government intend to allot a larger share of the national investment programme to water supplies in the future than they have been able to do in the past. Unless that is done, these additional funds which the right hon. Gentleman is tonight inviting the House to authorise will not be reflected in any increase in rural water supplies for a very long time.
I hope, too, that the Parliamentary Secretary will explain a statement in the Explanatory Memorandum which, frankly, I find difficult to follow. It is there stated that the expenditure on schemes of the order of £90 million it is expected will result from these additional grants will be spread over a period of seven years. During the last six years, with the present priorities which the Government have allocated, schemes amounting, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman, to about £9 million have been completed.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, completed.

Mr. Hutchinson: Does that mean that this £90 million will be spent, or will it merely be promised? If it is expected that it will actually be spent, then that will be 10 times the rate of progress of the past six years. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give the explanation. I am bound to say that unless the Government are prepared now to revise substantially their policy for the allocation of the capital investment programme, it seems inconceivable that the rate of development of rural water supplies can be expedited by something like 10 times over the next seven years.
It is not only that the Government have allocated to water a very low priority. During the last five years they have allowed far too great a proportion of the

essential materials for water supplies to be exported. During these post-war years there has been in the water industry a consistent shortage of cast iron pipes and fittings essential for new works. The shortage of cast iron pipes in particular has been a restricting factor in rural supplies, where greater lengths of mains are required than are called for in urban districts.
In 1946, although water schemes were then being delayed by the difficulty of obtaining pipes and fittings, about 20 per cent. of our total production of pipes and fittings were exported. The proportion rose steadily from 1946 until 1949, when about 25 per cent. of the total production in this country of cast iron pipes and fittings were being exported. Exports, no doubt, are urgent, but it was not right at the time when these types of pipes were urgently needed to provide what the Government had promised at the election they would provide for the rural population as quickly as they could—to allow one quarter of our production of those essential things to be sent abroad.
The predecessor of the Parliamentary Secretary, dealing with this matter some time ago, told the House that the real trouble was not in these cast iron lengths of pipes, but in what are called "specials" and "ends." I am not going to describe to the House what are specials and ends, partly because I am not quite certain; but that is what the predecessor of the hon. Gentleman said. If the Parliamentary Secretary intends to say the same thing tonight, is the House to understand that the shortage of specials and ends has been so great that it has prevented us using 25 per cent. of our total production of cast iron pipes for water supplies?

Mr. Lindgren: indicated dissent.

Mr. Hutchinson: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, as I expected that he would. If it does not mean that, then it is, indeed, the shortage of pipes which has held up rural supplies.
It is true that only a comparatively small proportion, even of the rural population, are without a piped supply. But persons who live in rural areas without a water supply have a serious ground for complaint. It has always been "jam tomorrow" for the people who live in these rural areas and have no water supply; but never "jam today."
I should like the hon. Gentleman to say that the Government are going to get rid of the problem of the rural parish without a piped supply. The money is there and, I believe, that if the necessary priorities were given we could get rid of this problem in quite a short time. It is true that those parishes without a piped supply now are those particularly difficult to supply they are probably those where there is some special engineering or financial obstacle.
When we have got a piped supply in these parishes we shall not have got to the end of the problems of rural water, because in rural areas the question of making connections to the main, when the main is in the roadway, is in some ways a much more difficult problem than getting the main there. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with this matter and tell us whether the Government have any proposals for assisting persons to make connections with the main when the main is brought within reasonable distance. It has been done for the farmers and, to a large extent, for other agricultural users. Have the Government any proposals for assisting householders to connect their premises to the main when it is eventually brought into their village? It is no good bringing the mains if people are unable to connect to them.

9.40 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning (Mr. Lindgren): May I first thank the House for the very generous reception which it has given to the Second Reading of this Bill? We on this side of the House detect the fact that hon. Gentlemen opposite have felt very uneasy about their record in the rural areas in the past. They have taken up so much time to explain away what they did not do in the past that they have had less time to deal with the Bill. The hon. and gallant Member for Richmond, Yorks. (Sir T. Dugdale) made his speech in his characteristically gentle and persuasive manner, and he was accurate in his statements. He truly said that the first occasion that the Tory Party really made possible rural water supplies was in the 1934 Act, and then only partially.
The real problem has not been the wicked rural district council, because no rural district council in a really rural area

has ever had the resources in rateable value behind it to enable it to provide a water supply. Therefore, they need financial assistance, and the first time that was provided was in 1934. But that Act failed inasmuch as it was not appreciated that sewerage schemes are complementary to the provision of water and that one without the other is not a great deal of good. An hon. Member appears rather to question that, but I say that a sewerage scheme is supplementary to a water scheme and one is as necessary as the other.
It is true, so far as the 1934 Act is concerned, that with the power of county council supervision and contributions provided under the 1929 Act, water supply was provided to a quarter of the parishes of this country up to 1939. What hon. Gentlemen opposite have not so far admitted is that naturally the sequence of events was that provision was first made to the parishes which it was easiest to supply. Most of them, or a very large proportion, were very much more urban in character than rural and the reason for the sequence of events was the question of the ability to carry the rate charge and the problem which the county council had to face in that respect.
Let no one gainsay the fact that, while it is true that from the Flood up to 1939 the Tories had provided for a quarter of the rural parishes of this country, it is left to this Government to provide for the remaining three-quarters, and we are doing that in a remarkably efficient and effective manner, but not so effective and efficient—

Mr. Hutchinson: Is the Parliamentary Secretary certain of his figure of a quarter? Is not two-thirds the right figure?

Mr. Lindgren: I can quote no greater authority than the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond, Yorks. My information is that his statement is correct, and if his information and mine coincide that is fairly reliable evidence that it is accurate.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Does the Parliamentary Secretary mean population?

Mr. Lindgren: Yes, that is the point I made—rural population. And that confirms the point I made that the supply was given to the areas that were more


nearly urban in character than rural—the easiest ones. I am not complaining. I had 20 years' local government experience before coming to this House, and in the Home County of Hertfordshire, in which I had the honour to serve, we did the same thing, and I was a party to it, because we were concerned about the ability of the areas to bear the cost, as the grants to them under the provisions of the 1929 Act and the 1934 Act were not really sufficient.
Three hon. Members referred to the question of a general policy about water supplies, including the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville). I wish to make it quite clear that this is a simple Bill, dealing with the question of grants to rural authorities in order that there shall be provision of water and sewerage schemes. It stands on its own feet. The general question of a water policy is entirely different, and legislation on that subject will be coming forward at a later date.
Several hon. Members have referred to the speed of doing the work, and great play has been made of the point that £3 million only has been spent. I am talking about the £3 million which relates to the schemes already completed. I thought that my right hon. Friend went to great pains to say that, so far as we were concerned—and I thought that some hon. Members would perhaps criticise the Ministry for it—there has to be the completion of a scheme before grant allocations are made; or if the scheme is not completed approved sections of it must be completed. In addition to the £3 million and the £9 million work about to be completed, there was in hand £12 million of work in the course of construction on which no grant—

Mr. Turton: No, £6½ million.

Mr. Lindgren: The £24 million actually going on. It was £9 million completed, £24 million authorised to start and £11 million in the final stages of planning, and that was work going on. In addition, before the schemes already completed could be started there had to be surveys by local authorities in conjunction with consulting engineers. Drawings had to be prepared and the schemes generally drawn up. It was not until late in 1946 before any of these schemes really got going. We are therefore not dealing

with the period from 1945 until the present time.
I would again quote figures which my right hon. Friend quoted. In December, 1947, the labour force engaged in water and sewerage schemes was only 9,800 whereas at the end of March, 1951, the labour force was approximately 20,000 men. Obviously, if there is a greater labour force the progress of the work will be more rapid, and we anticipate that the work will be speeded up very considerably indeed.
We must remember that we are referring to civil engineering labour for which there is competition by all the services—gas, electricity, site work in housing, and sewerage work associated with housing. The labour force will be brought up as far as possible within the limits already mentioned by my right hon. Friend. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed, in consultation with my right hon. Friend, that over the next three years, for each of the years, £25 million of the capital investment programme shall be allocated to work of water supply and sewerage.

Mr. Turton: Can the hon. Gentleman say what proportion of the £25 million will be allocated to rural water supplies and sewerage?

Mr. Lindgren: We have given that figure before, and I think the hon. Gentleman was present. One-third of the schemes are for rural water. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, we are in fact dealing with one-fifth of the population, and on the basis of equity we are giving —rightly as my right hon. Friend said —to the scattered populations of the rural areas priority over those of the urban areas. It is a priority to which they are entitled, but which they have been denied up to the present.
Let no one forget the question of capital cost, so far as rural schemes are concerned. The average of the capital cost per house works out at about £200. I am always conservative in the statements which I make in this House, and I never want to exaggerate. As the hon. and gallant Member for Richmond, Yorks, said, it is, if anything, more than £200 per house, and if one compares the capital cost per house on the rural basis with the capital cost per house on an urban basis, it is much more.

Mr. Braine: Would the hon. Gentleman define the terms which he is using? He repeatedly refers to rural areas. The 1944 Act allowed grants to be made to boroughs or urban districts which had a large rural element. Does he say that this vastly increased expenditure envisaged in this Bill is to be extended to urban districts which have a rural character?

Mr. Lindgren: No, Sir, because in fact we should differ as to what these areas with a rural character are. The hon. Gentleman representing the constituency which he does, one would take his intervention to mean that his constituency would be included, but it would not come within the Bill at all. This Bill is intended to assist those rural districts which are very widely scattered and in which the population is about one person to the acre. These are the persons who have been deprived of the opportunity of having a supply, because the resources available from the rateable value of the rural district were such that they could not afford the scheme and the county councils could not make a grant towards the additional cost.
The 1929 Act, which was referred to by the hon. and gallant Baronet, gave a bias or preference to such urban areas as those to which the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Braine) has referred in its weighted population Clauses. I am afraid that some of these urban districts did not use those opportunities as wisely as they could have done for the improvement of services, but used them rather for reduction of rates. To be quite fair, it is not intended under this Bill to give facilities to urban areas, even though those urban ares are not so completely urban as some others. The intention is to develop the rural areas and to give preference to sparsely-populated areas, which otherwise would be deprived for much longer of the benefits of the scheme.
The question of delay has been raised. Since I have been at the Ministry, I have had the opportunity of looking back into the files. I have not had a great many complaints from Members of Parliament in regard to delay in these schemes. I think the hon. and gallant Baronet said quite frankly that even if he were challenged, he could not quote a case. I believe there may have been cases, and if in fact there are cases now, I hope that

hon. Members, no matter in what part of the House they sit, will let me have the details, and on behalf of my right hon. Friend—since it is my business to relieve him of that detailed work—I will see that they are investigated.
In one or two cases which have been drawn to my attention and in which there has been considered to be delay, I have found that the delay has not been occasioned by the Ministry but by the county council. In connection with most of these schemes, in addition to the grant under the Rural Water Supplies Act. there is also power under the 1929 Act and subsequent Acts for the county council to make a grant to the rural district council. County councils are bodies which meet quarterly, and their committees also meet quarterly, and, sometimes, like Parliament, they refer matters back for further consideration in detail. Sometimes there is delay, although I am not going to blame county councils rather than the Ministry for that. As I say, in so far as it is within the field of my own Ministry, I hope hon. Members will let me have any instances they have in mind, and I will have them looked at as quickly as possible.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman also referred to Wales. So far as Wales is concerned, we are only too pleased to do anything and everything we can because, owing to its sparsely populated areas, the rateable value is not there to support schemes. Again, under the equalisation scheme the areas of Wales have been the greatest receivers and we will gladly see that in proportion, and perhaps in undue proportion, their difficulties are dealt with. Regarding Scotland, the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not, of course, expect me to be very forthcoming because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is the Minister responsible there. From my own experience, I would say that if there is anything going, Scotland will not be behind in seeing that it gets its fair and adequate share. I assume that very shortly a Scottish Bill, very similar to the one for England and Wales, will be introduced.
I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Dye), for his contribution, emanating as it does from his knowledge of agriculture and his activities in local government.
We appreciate the emphasis that he placed, not only on domestic water supplies, but also on water supplies for agricultural and industrial purposes, as referred to by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). The agricultural purpose is a very important one, for not only have we to consider the watering of animals, but also the cooling of milk and all such matters.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Is it not possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to give a reply to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Hutchinson)? Is this expansion really going to take place at something approximating to 10 times the present rate?

Mr. Lindgren: Either the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was not listening to what I said or I did not make myself clear. I said right at the start that the assumption that this had only been going on at the rate of half a million a year was wrong. I can give the right hon. and gallant Gentleman a guarantee that the £90 million will be spent during the next seven years provided, of course, there is no catastrophe such as war. We have built up the labour force from 7,000 to 20,000, and, in so far as labour is available, it will be improved still further.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow.—[Mr. Sparks.]

RURAL WATER SUPPLIES AND SEWERAGE [MONEY]

Considered in Committee of the whole House under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[King's Recommendation signified.]

[Colonel Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Resolved:

That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session substituting for the existing limit of fifteen million pounds on the contributions out of moneys provided by Parliament which may be made under section one of the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, a new limit of forty-five million pounds, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the substitu-

tion of that new limit in the sums payable out of such moneys under subsection (5) of section one of that Act or under Part 1 of the Local Government Act, 1948.—[Mr. Lindgren.]

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

LACE INDUSTRY (SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH)

Resolved:
Draft Lace Industry (Scientific Research Levy) Order, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, approved.—[Mr. Rhodes.]

LACE FURNISHINGS INDUSTRY (EXPORT PROMOTION)

Resolved:
Draft Lace Furnishings Industry (Export Promotion Levy) Order, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, approved.—[Mr. Rhodes.]

DENTISTS (SUPERANNUATION)

10.1 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Blenkinsop): I beg to move:
That the Draft National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) (No. 1) Regulations, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, be approved.
These Draft Superannuation Regulations make changes needed by the introduction of charges for dentures. They ensure that the dentists' remuneration includes what he receives from patients under the Act as well as from the Executive Council, which retains the status quo as far as the Superannuation Regulations are concerned.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I understand these Regulations are consequential upon matters which have already been dealt with. The Parliamentary Secretary was perhaps extremely compact in the explanation he gave but I think we could allow these Regulations to go through.

Dr. Hill: Clearly these Regulations are desirable. They do not, of course, deal correspondingly with those who are rendering ophthalmic service, for the obvious reason that supplemental ophthalmic service is not subject to superannuation provisions.

Mr. Blenkinsop: The particular wording we have to correct applies only to dentists. That correction is not needed so far as ophthalmic opticians are concerned because in their case the term "remuneration" already covers this type of income. In the past the word "remuneration" was more narrowly interpreted in the case of dentists.

Dr. Hill: There is no superannuation provision for the oculist—

Mr. Speaker: Under these Regulations that is out of order.

Resolved:

Draft National Health Service (Scotland) (Superannuation) Amendment Regulations, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May. approved.—[The Lord Advocate.]

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (SUPPLEMENTATION)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Draft Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Scheme, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th May, be approved.—[Mr. B. Taylor.]

10.3 p.m.

Mr. Iain MacLeod: I do not think we should let these very important Draft Statutory Instruments go without a word. Although there is nothing in them to which anybody would choose to object seriously there are one or two points on which I think it would be an advantage to have a short explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary. They carry out the Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Act which was passed with considerable good will by the House in the first week of March.
The first and important point that occurs relates to the date on which this draft Scheme is to become effective. I asked the Minister to discuss this point on Second Reading, and she replied that if she received the Royal Assent before Easter, which she did, she hoped to have the Scheme ready on resumption. In fact, we seem to have lost a considerable amount of time, because this draft was laid before Parliament on 10th May and so far from being immediately after the Easter Recess it was the day before we adjourned for Whitsun. I cannot remember how long we have been at the House since Whitsun. No doubt it seems

like years, but it is in fact some four or five weeks.
The date of the commencement of the Scheme, as the Parliamentary Secretary understands, is the important date for these 5,000 people and not the date of the commencement of the Act. If this Scheme is to come into effect 14 days after the date which we assume is tomorrow, then after that there is still the Board to be set up. There is no doubt that there is certain administrative work to be done, and that all the time the 5,000 pre-1924 cases are waiting for the allowances to start. On Second Reading the Minister said that she hoped that the payments would begin about the middle of the year. We have already reached that time, and by the look of the timetable I find it difficult to imagine that any payments will be made until August and perhaps well on in August. I am sure the House would like some words from the Parliamentary Secretary to remove such fears as there may be about this.
The second of my three points is a passing matter in relation to paragraph 5 of the Scheme, which relates to the calculation of loss of earnings. In the Committee I tried to take a part of the calculation out of the Bill, but I was not successful, although I had a fairly sympathetic hearing. No doubt the provision of alternative remedies in a Statutory Instrument is wholly out of order, and doubly out of order in relation to a measure concerned with workmen's compensation, and I must leave that alone, but I still regret that the restriction on the under-21's remains.
My third point is one of great importance, however few people may be involved. It arises out of paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 of the Scheme, and particularly out of paragraph 10. The three paragraphs set out the composition of the Board, its procedure and the determination of claims. I particularly direct the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to paragraph 10 (2), which says:
 Any claimant may make a request to the Board for a hearing…and the Board shall grant such request unless they are satisfied that the claim or question can properly he determined without a hearing in which event they shall inform the claimant in writing and may proceed to determine the case without a hearing.
Although I am certain that no injustice whatever will be done to a single man, it is also important for us to try to remove any possible source of grievance.


The Minister informed us that there are only 5,000 of these cases, and I remember my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North (Mr. Peake), saying that his experience led him to believe that the number would be even smaller. In that sense it is a very small problem, and of the 5,000 no doubt only a fraction will appeal and an even smaller fraction will be dissatisfied if they cannot appear in person or with a trade union or friendly society representative. I do not know if another order will be made. I am not suggesting that we should oppose this one, but I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to consider whether it is possible to have a more or less automatic right of hearing if these people so desire. Only a tiny fraction of the 5,000 claimants are likely to take advantage of it, but it is important for us to remove every possible sense of grievance.
The final point which I want to emphasise—it is a particularly strong point—is that the decision of the Board or a sub-committee of the Board is final, and as there is no appeal from that except the Board's own review, which they would no doubt undertake at the request of the Minister, it is all the more important that these cases should on every possible ground be given an automatic right. Although it would be impossible for the Parliamentary Secretary to alter the draft Scheme, I am sure he will consider the point sympathetically and no doubt the Board itself will take notice of the point which has been raised and will bear it in mind when considering the cases of any claimants who would like to appeal and whose case at first sight the Board or the sub-committee might decide to dismiss without a hearing.
Having made those points, I should like to end by saying that whatever delays it appears, on the surface, that there may have been, I am quite certain that this Scheme comes forward with the good will of the whole House. We shall be very glad to see it in operation at the earliest possible date.

10.11 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I do not want to keep a tired House for more than a few seconds, but I want to make a short and very important point. We all welcome the Scheme, but there are some sufferers who still remain quite

outside its scope. The Act gives the necessary relief to the pre-1924 cases, both accidents and industrial diseases but, unfortunately, for industrial diseases the provisions are limited to silicosis, because silicosis was the only industrial disease scheduled by 1924. At any rate, whether I am right in my recollection or not—[Interruption.] Well, that is all that is referred to in the Section. If hon. Members refer to the Section, it may be that they will find others, but certainly byssinosis was not scheduled until long afterwards and pneumoconiosis was not scheduled until long afterwards. As for anthracosis, I cannot remember.
We therefore still have a very small class of sufferers, and a very tragic class, who contracted industrial diseases over this period, some before 1924 and some just after 1924, who do not come under the new provisions and who are suffering quite tragically. There are those who are suffering acutely from byssinosis and there is absolutely nothing medically which can be done to assuage their suffering in the later stages of the disease, and very little institutionally which is being done to provide any relief or any treatment. I do not think much can be done; all one can do is to provide an adequate standard of life.
The Parliamentary Secretary will say, quite rightly, that of course they get National Health benefit under the Insurance Scheme and so on, but there is a moral value about the right to compensation. The cost would be relatively very low and would, in fact, be trifling. There are few sufferers and all these years have gone by, so the cost is really small. I urge my hon. Friend to consider whether he can introduce new regulations under which the Insurance Scheme would accept the liability to maintain this ever-dwindling class. New cases are covered already and it is really a question of relieving this ever-dwindling class of genuine sufferers who get no benefit under the Workmen's Compensation Act because their disease was contracted before it was scheduled as an industrial disease.

10.13 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: These are draft Statutory Instruments only in a technical sense. It is not possible for minor points to be altered, except by the cumbrous procedure of their being withdrawn and re-laid. Thus, those of us who wish to


draw attention to minor points about which we feel uneasy can hope only to secure from the Parliamentary Secretary an undertaking that the administration of these Statutory Instruments will take account of those points. It is from that point of view that I support the request which has been addressed to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod) in regard to hearings of claimants by the Board and hope that he will give an undertaking that the only cases in which the Board will be satisfied that they can determine the claim without a hearing will be those in which they are giving an affirmative decision.
There is a further undertaking which, if possible, I should like to have from the Parliamentary Secretary. Under paragraph 15 of this Scheme the Board may require a claimant to undergo a medical examination. As the Scheme is worded, they may require him to undergo that examination in not less than three clear days after the date of the notice; that is to say, a minimum notice of three days for attending a medical examination is laid down by paragraph 15.
In practice I think that is an unreasonably short period. The date of the notice is presumably the date on which the notice is posted, or possibly even the day before, so that the claimant may receive the notice that he has to attend for a medical examination on the day before the date of the examination, or even on the day itself. So I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give an assurance that, in the administration of this Scheme, a much longer period will in fact be allowed to these claimants—a much longer period of warning of the place and time at which they are required to attend for medical examination.
Finally, I hope that the hon. Gentleman, when he replies, will be able to give the House some explanation of what on the face of it is the remarkable delay that there has been not only in laying the Scheme—it was laid on 10th May—but in bringing it before the House for approval. It must be a purely Parliamentary reason. There can have been no Departmental ground why this House was not asked to give its approval at an earlier date. It must be some purely Parliamentary reason, and unless the Parliamentary Secretary can make it

quite clear what that is, it will be necessary to conclude that hon. Members opposite attach more importance to the timetable of public transport than to the timetable of the implementation of the Act upon which this Scheme is based.

10.16 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance (Mr. Bernard Taylor): I regret that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) should have ended on such a discordant note a series of speeches which have been so harmonious. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain MacLeod) made some reference to the date. Let me assure him that my right hon. Friend all along has been very anxious that the Scheme should be brought into operation as soon as possible so that the allowances to which any claimant may be entitled should be paid quickly. I regret that I cannot give the exact date to the hon. Gentleman tonight.
However, when this Scheme has been approved by both this House and by another place, the Board, I can assure him, will get to work immediately; and we are hoping that before many weeks are past—in a very short period of time—these allowances will be paid to the applicants who are successful. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with that, although I am not in a position to tell him the exact date.
As to appeals from the decisions of the Board by the applicants who go before the Board, I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that there are precedents for this both in the Byssinosis scheme and in the Pneumoconiosis scheme. We feel, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel, that the Board will receive the cases with sympathy, so that there will be no difficulty at all in the direction the hon. Gentleman has in mind, respecting appeals from the Board's decisions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale) made some reference to what I know exercises the minds of all hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is the case that there are people suffering from silicosis and pneumoconiosis who left the process before it was scheduled. We cannot do anything for that particular type of case in this scheme, but I would remind my hon. Friend that a committee is already


sitting, and meeting the T.U.C., about that subject, and I hope that, before very long, we shall have something to say about it.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, raised a very important point as far as the three days' notification is concerned, if the Board thinks a particular applicant should be medically examined. That is laid down in the Scheme, and, of course, if the Scheme is accepted tonight, and in another place in the very near future, the three days' notification will stand. However, I am sure that what he has said on this point will be borne in mind by my right hon. Friend, and I have no doubt that it will be brought to the notice of the Board itself. Concerning the delay in this Scheme coming before the House for approval, I am afraid that the Parliamentary timetable is not in my hands. That is a matter for another authority, and I cannot pursue that point.
May I make some brief observations regarding the Board and its composition, because I know this is a matter which is exercising the minds of both sides of the House. In the first place, I should like to inform the House that my right hon. Friend proposes to have eight members upon the Board which is mentioned in the Scheme. Two of the eight will be the Chairman and Deputy Chairman who will be lawyers of standing.
It will be understood that no appointment can be made until the Scheme comes into operation, but following consultations which my right hon. Friend has had with the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Advocate she proposes to appoint Mr. Paul Sandlands, K.C., Recorder of Birmingham, as Chairman, and Mr. James A. Crawford, K.C., a member of the Scottish Bar, as Deputy Chairman. The Members which it is proposed to appoint, after consulting both sides of industry, are: Sir William Lawther, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, Mr. A. McAndrews of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Mr. R. Pilkington who is adviser on Workmen's compensation to the National Coal Board, and Mr. W. C. Stansfield, who has had much experience of workmen's compensation as an insurance official. The remaining two members will be from the staff of the Ministry of National Insurance.
Bearing in mind the composition of the Board, we have every confidence that this Scheme will be well and sympathetically administered, and we feel that there will be no cause for either regrets or disappointment on that score.

Mr. Iain MacLeod: I was dealing with a slightly different point. I fully agree with the Board which the hon. Gentleman has read out, and I feel that full justice will be done. My point was that not only should justice be done but that it should seem to be done. It seems to me a possibility that if these old people of an average age of something like 70 are refused a hearing, even with a representative, they may feel some grievance, even if it is non-existent. No doubt members of the Board will read the report of the debate in the House tonight and will take up that point. I have no doubt whatever that this Board is going to do justice. I am merely concerned that the people who want their case reviewed shall feel that justice has been done.

Mr. Taylor: Unless there are very strong grounds for thinking an oral hearing would not be justified, the Board will in no case refuse a hearing to any applicant. The Scheme provides, as the House knows, that the Board shall not turn down a case without an oral hearing, unless, as I have intimated, there are strong grounds for so doing. One other point, which I am sure will appeal to the hon. Gentleman, is that all the hearings will he held in public.
It is intended that the claimant should be represented at the hearing, if he so wishes, by his trade union, by a barrister, a solicitor or any other representative he wishes. It may be that this is not clear from the wording of the Scheme, and for this I express my regret, but we are advised that the wording of paragraph 10 (6), if read in conjunction with paragraph 10 (7), does what I have said, and I think I can give an assurance to the House that the Board will interpret these paragraphs in that particular way. Subject to that, the procedure will be for the Board itself to determine, but personally we hope the Board will keep the proceedings quite informal. I hope what I have said to the House about the constitution and the procedure of the Board will give satisfaction generally.
One other point is that when the Board has made its award it will fall to the


Ministry of National Insurance to pay allowances out of the Industrial Injuries Fund. The House, I am sure, will want to know when payments are to be made. I have given an answer on that particular point, and while I cannot mention the exact date, when this Scheme has been approved we shall go ahead as expeditiously as we can so that the payments can be made at the earliest possible moment. Once this draft has been approved here and in another place, the actual Scheme can be made. The Board will have the cooperation of the insurance companies and of employers, such as the National Coal Board, from whom come probably the greatest number of cases, and of the many who are likely to benefit from the Scheme.
We shall use all the publicity of which we are capable, and it will be available al the appropriate moment in the form of leaflets in our National Insurance offices. As I said on Second Reading, we shall disseminate this knowledge as quickly as we possibly can. Even if the calculation and award of the allowances take several weeks, all arrears will be paid back to the commencement of the scheme.
Before closing, may I make one other observation? The claim in no way alters the basis of workmen's compensation in those cases to which workmen's compensation still applies. This Scheme, is purely supplementary, and the obligations of employers and workers remain quite unchanged. After these few observations and answers to the questions raised from both sides of the House, I hope this draft, like its parent Act in 1951, will be unanimously approved so that we can get on with the job and do justice to the people whom it will serve.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. Molson: The Parliamentary Secretary has replied to the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. lain MacLeod) with his usual charm of manner, but I am not sure that he has entirely set our minds at rest about the procedure likely to be followed. I shall not pursue the question why it was that this Scheme was laid on 10th May and that it is only on 25th June that the Government have found the Parliamentary time for it to be discussed. The

Parliamentary Secretary said that is not his responsibility. That I fully recognise, but it is the responsibility of the Government, and it seems an extraordinary thing that a matter of this importance should have been delayed during the whole of this time.
The most important point raised by my hon. Friends was the question of the right of audience for those aged persons who are claiming benefit under this Scheme. I was partly reassured by what the hon. Gentleman said would in fact be the practice of the Board. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman, however, that this Scheme has to be understood by the people who are likely to claim under it.
Anyone reading paragraph 10 would not realise what I understood the Parliamentary Secretary to say—first, that any applicant will be entitled to be represented by counsel, or by anyone else whom he desires to represent him, and secondly—and this is the point on which I want to be reassured—that no claim which is made will be turned down without the applicant having an opportunity of a personal hearing. That is what the Parliamentary Secretary said, but I cannot find that that is laid down in terms in paragraph 10.
There is no reason why that should not become the practice of the Board. Naturally, they have power to hear any applicant they desire, and I think it of the utmost importance, as my hon. Friends have said, that justice not only shall be done, but shall appear to be done. The applicants under this Scheme who do not obtain all they ask for should at any rate be assured that they have had a fair hearing. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would let me know whether I understood his speech aright. Even though it may not be necessary for applicants to be heard by the Board in cases where their applications are going to be granted, applications will not be turned down without giving the applicants the opportunity for an oral hearing.

Mr. B. Taylor: By leave of the House, I should like to supplement what I said to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). Every claimant will have the right, if he wishes, to be heard before the Board at an oral hearing, unless the


Board decide that this cannot be justified. I can say with a high degree of assurance that, with the constitution of the Board as it is, the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) need have no fears on that score

10.34 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The Parliamentary Secretary has done his best to reply to my hon. Friends on at least two of the points which they raised. I think it will be agreed by the House that they have done a service in raising this matter this evening and allowing these points of explanation to be made. There was a point made by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Lain MacLeod), which has not yet been fully cleared up, about the date of the Scheme coming into operation. In our previous discussion in March the hon. Member for Enfield, West, said:
 I am more concerned with the date of the commencement of the Scheme than the date of the commencement of the Act."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1951; Vol. 484, c. 188.]
It was hoped then, according to the Minister, that the Scheme would come into operation and that payments would be being made about the middle of the year. We are now past the middle of the year. The Scheme has not yet come into operation, nor can it for at least another two weeks, and the Parliamentary Secretary has said that payments will of course date back to the date of the operation of the Scheme.

Mr. B. Taylor: To the date of the commencement of the Scheme.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The hon. Gentleman used some disquieting words when he said that the Board would get going as soon as may be and that before many weeks the Scheme would be in operation. It is now almost July, and "many weeks" will take us to the Recess, and we shall not have an opportunity of seeing the payments

made which the Minister suggested would be made. Is that not a longer date than the Department really needs? Cannot the hon. Gentleman give an indication that before the House rises the Scheme will be in operation? "Before many weeks" is a pretty elastic term, and I should have thought that it might have been possible for him to give an assurance that the Scheme could be in operation before the House rose. Can he perhaps give that assurance?

Mr. B. Taylor: As I said to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, I could not give an exact date. All that I can say is that when the Scheme has been approved by this House and another place, the Board will get to work immediately, and we are hoping that as a consequence payments will be made in a very short time. I regret that I cannot give an exact date. It would be wrong of me to do that, but I can assure the House that the work will go on expeditiously once the Scheme has been approved, and payments will not he long delayed.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: The hon. Gentleman has not found it possible to add to what he has already said, and I do not wish to press him unduly. We all realise that he cannot go further than the expression of hope he has already given. But it falls some distance short of what the Minister was in a position to give as long ago as 5th March when she said that actual payments would be made about the middle of this year. I trust it will be possible for the Scheme to come into operation before the House rises. Nobody wishes to delay it, and my hon. Friends and myself will be only too glad to let the Minister have the Motion approving the Scheme.

Resolved:

That the Draft Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Scheme, 1951, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th May, be approved.

FOOD (CHEMICAL ADDITIVES)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Popplewell]

10.39 p.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It has been known by hon. Members for some time, and certainly before Question time today, that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross), was proposing to raise upon the Adjournment the subject of chemicals in foodstuffs. He put Question 5 today and, with supplementaries, that occupied a certain amount of time of the House. The question I want to ask you, Sir, is whether the rules against anticipation have been infringed by the hon. Member in giving notice of an Adjournment Debate upon the use of chemicals in food, knowing full well he also had on the Order Paper a Question on that subject?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): A Question is not a proceeding and, therefore anticipation cannot arise.

10.41 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stross: I think I am most fortunate that, by coincidence, in the Ballot I am able to pursue a little further a subject on which I tried to gain some information this afternoon. That must be a rarity, and I hope to take a little advantage of it.
May I first say, in asking the House to consider the problem, that the words I used were, "Adulteration of Food." I am using the word "food" in a technical sense in the way described and incorporated in Section 100 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938. There the term "food" includes anything added, such as colouring matter, or flavouring. By the term "adulteration" in this sense, I mean for the purposes of the Debate any form of treatment or processing and any particular addition of a chemical substance, as a preserver, colouring agent, bleacher, emulsifier, sweetener, or so-called "improver," on condition that any of these may be harmful to those who consume the food afterwards. This afternoon I used the word "additives." I used it in the way that it is normally used in the trade and by scientists because it is a better term, although an ugly word, than any other we know of, and additive

means addition to food, whether harmless or harmful.
May I say to the Parliamentary Secretary that I would like him to have in mind, and I am sure that he and his Department do, that even if additives appear not to be harmful in small amounts, we have to consider cumulative effects and that is the problem which always must be before us. We all know food has been processed, preserved and sophisticated from time immemorial, but in recent years the addition of chemicals to food has very greatly increased. The reason is obvious, it is because the chemical industry is a most elaborate and romantic industry, and there is almost nothing it cannot do. A great spate of new substances are becoming available from time to time, and some of them can be used for all sorts of purposes which in the past we never thought possible.
Both here and in America and, of course, in other parts of the world, where chemicals are added to food, we find there have been a number of deaths and very many more cases of serious poisoning. It is fair to say that in every case there has been a lapse of time, sometimes considerable, before physicians and analysts have been able to discover the offending poison, because no one has known that the stuff has been added.
I would remind the House of an outbreak, as long as 50 years ago, the notorious outbreak of arsenical poisoning due to drinking of beer brewed from invert sugar made from iron pyrites grossly contaminated with arsenic. There is an interesting Report in the Library by a Royal Commission which investigated it People died in Manchester, Liverpool, my constituency, and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Edward Davies), and ultimately it was discovered what was the cause. The beer was taken out of circulation and we have not had cases of that kind since.
Another example was in America, in 1937, when it was thought that an elixir could be prepared of sulphonilamide. The manufacturers who prepared it found a solvent. That solvent, unfortunately, was poisonous and more than 100 deaths occurred before it was discovered that death was caused by this solvent. It was rather like an anti-freeze mixture and was used for dissolving the sulphonila-


mide. It has, of course, been forbidden ever since then, and I am sure is not used here.

Dr. Hill: I do not dispute the historical cases of the hon. Gentleman. but would not he agree that it would be wrong to give the impression that in recent years chemicals as such have been proved the cause, to any widespread extent, of deaths or illnesses?

Dr. Stross: I have just described 100 deaths in 1937 due to one substance alone, and if the hon. Member will listen I shall be interested to know whether he agrees with me or not. I think he will agree with me. I was saying that I was most disturbed by the fact that by the law as it now stands any manufacturer in this country may add any substance without having to prove that that substance is harmless.
The public receives its protection through the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, and I would ask my hon. Friend these three questions: First, is he satisfied that Section 1 (1,a) of the Act gives him sufficient power to act so as to give the public adequate protection? I will not quote it, although I have the exact wording here, because I want to save time. Secondly, is he sure that the defence offered in Section 4 to the manufacturer against whom an accusation is brought is not a defence which can too easily be used?
Thirdly, Section 8, referred to by my right hon. Friend today, gives the power to make regulations to protect the public and to see that none of these substances is added if there be any suspicion. Is this protection fully used? Can he and does he so interpret the Act that the onus of proof today that an added substance is harmless can be put fairly and squarely where it ought to go, and that is on the manufacturer, or producer, or any other who intends to place it in the food? I do not think he can, in view of the answer I received from the Minister today, who said that frequently manufacturers seek advice and adopt the advice of the Ministry; but he added that there was at present no more direct control over the use of substances which are not known to be harmful and which are not open on reasonable grounds to dispute. It is about that that I wish to speak. If the Parliamentary Secretary feels that the powers are not available, I wonder if he

would give the House an assurance as to his intentions in the future? I know I cannot go beyond asking that.
I do not think it is a happy situation that, when the Ministry has to bring an action against a manufacturer who is thought to be at fault, the case is heard in a court of law, with conflicting points given by experts before an arbitrator who is himself not an expert. Would not it be better to use the technique followed in America where written evidence is given by experts coolly and quietly, without the tension which is aroused by two opposing views which are—I do not want to be offensive—brought by two opposing sides?
Would my hon. Friend also note that the best qualified food scientists are not only skilled chemists, but are also medically trained? The reason I bring this point forward is that I feel that the technicians should be masters not only in the narrow field of this subject but should cast their eyes towards the wider horizons. I could give many instances where the best medical opinion has been scorned. A hundred years ago, before the days of Pasteur, it was suggested by an eminent doctor that cholera was caused by drinking water from the River Thames polluted drinking sewage from ships moored in the stream. The doctor was almost hounded out of professional life for saying that, but it was found to be right. We should not, therefore, tie the hands of our people too tightly.
May I give a few short examples? One is regarding mineral oils which were used during the war, or used to be used to make cakes, when there was a shortage of fats. They were used sometimes as salad dressings, after treatment with emulsifiers. We know today, that use of these mineral oils prevents the absorption of the vitamins A, D and K, and interferes with the absorption of calcium and phosphates. We know today that in pregnancy this can cause in the new-born child haemorrhagic disease. We know its use is forbidden in America. Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us whether its use is forbidden as an addition to food in Britain?
We have discussed the subject of bread very often and I quoted today the views of Lord Mellanby, who has now retired from the M.R.C., in which he states that he suspects that peptic ulceration may be


due to the use of agene in bread. I think I must leave that simply by saying that we could not convict agene by positive evidence; but we suspect it, and we think that we ought to get rid of it and find a better alternative. Then there are bread softeners, such as monoglycerides which in young creatures tend to slow up growth. Recently we have a suggestion that purified wool fat should be used as a bread softener. Here, again, I think we ought to be very suspicious, and to say that we think that it is a most undesirable practice unless we can get absolute evidence that it is not harmful.
There are sweetening agents like dulcin, which is forbidden in America. Is it forbidden here? Now we know that at dosage levels of 0.1 per cent. it causes liver tumours in animals. Other carcinogenic substances, oil Orange E, are used in margarine, and butter yellow, and possess this property. A related substance naphthylamine phenyl B is used in America as an anti-oxidant, to preserve chewing gum. It is related to these substances, and therefore possibly dangerous
My last word is to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to say something about the danger of insecticides, like D.D.T., in bakeries and dairies, and also on the danger of detergents. We are asking the Parliamentary Secretary to assist food manufacturers by creating some machinery which will put these substances through the mill and test them thoroughly. Then, when we are satisfied that these substances can safely be used, there should be compiled a comprehensive pharmacopoeia, so that a manufacturer can consult it and assure himself that it is all right to use them.

10.54 p.m.

Dr. Hill: While appreciating the sincerity of purpose and the chemical accuracy which have prompted the hon. Member to raise this matter, it would be a pity if that long and complicated catalogue of substances were to lead to the conelusion, Or were to give the general impression, that chemicals are responsible for the problems of food poisoning today. I would urge him to re-read the debate initiated by the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton), in which he took a prominent part and placed his finger on the biggest problem of all, the problem of the preventable infection of food.
I hope that nothing which the hon. Member has said, though no doubt true in its general application, will give the general impression that chemicals used in food hygiene have as fearful and awful effects as his remarks in the aggregate would seem to suggest.

10.55 p.m.

Dr. Broughton: I intervene in this short debate for a very few minutes. I do so to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) on having raised this subject of food adulteration and to express the hope that the problem is going to receive the careful consideration of the Government. I think that we have listened to an erudite and lucid speech delivered by an hon. Member who, in addition to his knowledge of medicine, has also gained academic distinction in science. He has made the speech interesting and has, I suggest, shown the problem to be one requiring serious thought.
Biology teaches us that food is of the very first importance to all living creatures, and human beings are no exception to that rule. It is right, therefore, that this House should pay attention to all aspects of the nation's food supply. We should not confine our debates on this matter to questions of quantity and variety but also pay close regard to quality. In doing so, we are bound to give earnest thought to this problem of adulteration.
As I understand this problem, about 700 foreign substances are introduced deliberately into our foods to act as preservatives or to make articles of diet more attractive to the consumer. We know that 40 per cent. of these impurities cause no harmful results, but we are eating more than 400 of them in ignorance of any long-term effects they may have on the human body. Nowadays, so many foods are preserved and so many are tampered with to make them more palatable that the public has a right to be protected against possible harmful effects of adulteration.
We can take it for granted that in this country at the present time there is no intention on the part of food manufacturers and others responsible for the preparation and sale of food to render any article of diet harmful to the consumer. Competition in the food industry is so keen that all concerned wish to retain their customers. The moral standards of


food manufacturers in our country are sufficiently high to prohibit them from preparing and selling any food if aware that added impurities injure the health of the consumer. It seems to me the danger lies in allowing food to be adulterated with substances, the long-term effects of which are at present unknown. I wish to join my hon. Friend in requesting the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food to inform us of his intentions to safeguard our people from impurities which may be harmful and to ensure wholesome food to the nation.

10.58 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Frederick Willey): We are all very much obliged to my hon. Friend for raising this subject and it is only a pity that we have not more time to discuss it. The use of chemicals in food manufacture is a complicated, difficult, and important subject. As my hon. Friend said, it is not a new problem but the extent of the use of chemicals has grown considerably over the last few years. We are now long past the point where such great populations can be sustained and fed without the assistance of the chemists. We are not only concerned with the use of chemicals as food ingredients but the use of them in agricultural and horticultural operations, the treatment of stored goods, the destruction of pests, processing of foodstuffs, and, in fact, the steps we feel we ought to take to ensure clean food.
All these rely to a greater or lesser degree nowadays upon chemicals. At the same time, I agree with the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) that we should not be alarmists about this. The fact is that most cases of food poisoning in this country are due to bacteriological origins, and in answer to the intervention the hon. Member for Luton made, I am not aware that any deaths in this country have resulted from consumption of food to which a toxic chemical has been added deliberately.
People have a very natural and proper feeling that what is new and untried may be dangerous, and it is the duty of all of us to do what we can to allay fears and remove suspicions; but as I have said, the matter is complicated and far from easy. The use of chemicals has become indispensable. We cannot afford to see their use restricted. Again some chemical sub-

stances, such as iodine and copper, are essential to life, yet toxic if taken in considerable quantities. It is extraordinarily difficult to establish with any absolute certainty that any of the substances may over a period of time have no undesirable effect. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, we are doing what we can to solve the problem, and devoting a good deal of attention to it.
We are not without powers in doing this. We have the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, and the Defence (Sale of Food) Regulations of 1943. In fact, we have used the 1943 Regulations to extend some of the powers we had under the Food and Drugs Act. My hon. Friend mentioned Section 4, but we have to remember that all the Sections have to be read together. I think it is not so much a question of powers as of research and knowledge. We are in regular consultation with the Ministry of Health and the Medical Research Council, on whom we have to rely for expert advice. At the Ministry we have the Scientific Advisory division, a group of scientists whose job it is to keep abreast of scientific knowledge and interpret it in food technology terms.
We have close contact with the trade, and I agree with what the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton) said about the trade. Of course, no firm having any regard for its goodwill, would knowingly offer for sale any food which might produce a toxic effect. In fact our consultation with the trade is a two-way traffic because we are also trying to gain benefit from the researches carried out by the trade itself.
The question of the use of chemicals in food and food processes is in fact also under examination by several departmental committees. The Food Standards Committee has at present a sub-committee examining metallic contamination, and another examining preservatives, which incidentally will include butter yellow, to which my hon. Friend referred. There is also the working party under the chairmanship of Professor Zuckerman which is inquiring into precautionary measures against toxic chemicals used in agriculture. Hon. Members will remember that during the debate we had on safe food, we made reference to the fact that a subcommittee of the Catering Trade Working Party had inquired specially into detergents.
My hon. Friend put forward an interesting point of view about the question of the onus of proof and the method in which these cases should be determined. Because I am a lawyer, he will not expect me to agree with him in what he says. He will appreciate that his point has very serious objections, but I would agree with him that we should use our research to create a limited field of precise scientific knowledge. If we had that, many of the difficulties about which he is apprehensive would not arise, because the courts could interpret these cases better if they had available more precise scientific knowledge.
My hon. Friend asked me about Section 8, under which we have powers to make regulations. The short answer is that we have made no regulation under that Section, but we have similar powers under the Defence Regulations and under those Regulations we have made the Fluorine in Food Order, which limits the amount of fluorine in acidic phosphates used in food. We have made the Mineral Oil in Food Order, which prohibits, except for very small quantities, the addition of mineral oil to food.
My hon. Friend mentioned agene about which the House has shown particular interest. There, although for the past 30 years it has been used without any evidence of harmful effects on man, we did pay regard to the experiments that were made on animals, and there were subsequent discussions between the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Health, the Medical Research Council, and the millers, and we decided that the process should be abandoned when practical arrangements could be made to change over to a suitable alternative method, and when we are in a position to decide which is the best alternative method. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that we must take

every step to ensure that the alternative method is the best one.
My hon. Friend mentioned also emulsifying agents. In this country the use of these softeners has not reached the same peak as in the United States, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the Ministry is watching the situation carefully. He also mentioned dulcin, and I can assure him that it is not being used in food manufactures in this country, nor is resorcinol being used by the food manufacturers. He mentioned purified wool-fat or lanolin. From my inquiries it seems that this has been tried as a bread softener, when it has been used in minute quantities, but there is no general use and we doubt whether it is in use at all in this country.
My hon. Friend invited me to get into difficulties with the Chair in commenting upon the Food and Drugs Act, 1938. I do not intend to get out of order, but will say to my hon. Friend that we have now had several years' useful experience of working under this Act aided by the Defence Regulations, and the fact that we have continued the Defence Regulations signifies that we do not consider the Act as altogether adequate. These are all matters we will keep under review, and they are matters on which we have to consult the appropriate authorities and the trade, and I can assure my hon. Friend we shall insist on the operation of the law.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock, and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Nine Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.